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95 news posts in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution

Environment

15 Mar 2023

What does flattery do to our brains? Here are five Frontiers articles you won’t want to miss

By Deborah Pirchner, Frontiers science writer Image: Shutterstock.com At Frontiers, we bring some of the world’s best research to a global audience. But with tens of thousands of articles published each year, it’s impossible to cover all of them. Here are just five amazing papers you may have missed. What praise and flattery does to our brains Both sincere praise and flattery are rewarding in different ways, but the various effects of these types of praise are not obvious. Now, researchers from Japan have published an article in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience in which they examined the brain activity of participants who received sincere praise or flattery after performing a visual search task. Using neuroimaging, the researchers found different effects of praise. The activation of the part of the brain modulating reward and pleasure processing was higher when participants received sincere praise than when they received flattery. The scientists also observed a socio-emotional effect, based on the positive feedback conveyed by praise. Altogether, they found that the neural dynamics of the rewarding and socio-emotional effects of different types of praise differ. Article link:https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2023.985047/full Fish bone matrix may help heal bone defects Biocompatibility and osteogenic activity are properties of decalcified bone […]

Environment

07 Mar 2023

Wings, not webs: Certain bugs are the winners of urbanization, impacting cities’ insect diversity

By Deborah Pirchner, Frontiers science writer Image: Dr Marion Chatelain. Occurrence and abundance of the ‘cucumber green spider’ decreased along the rural-urban gradient. Urban spread goes hand in hand with wildlife habitat loss and fragmentation. This impacts all animals, down to the smallest. Scientists found that the level of urbanization impacts arthropod abundance, richness, and diversity, factors which likely alter the foraging behavior of bigger animals. Cities are bursting with life, both human and animal. The smallest of them, insects, spiders, and ants are easily overseen, but their presence – or absence – in cities has wide-reaching effects. Scientists in Austria have published a study in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, which found a correlation between the presence of arthropods – invertebrate animals with an exoskeleton; among them are bees, insects, and spiders – and level of urbanization. “We show that richness and diversity of arthropods on trees and bushes decreases along the rural-urban gradient,” said first author Dr Marion Chatelain, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Innsbruck, Austria. “More specifically, we show that urbanization disfavors wingless groups, particularly so on trees. Indeed, web spiders and springtails are less likely to be found in the city, where, on the […]

Featured news

31 Jan 2023

Songbird species work together to mob predator owls, but only strike when the time is right

By Mischa Dijkstra, Frontiers science writer Northern pygmy owl, Glaucidium gnoma. Image credit: W Douglas Robinson Scientists have now shown that songbirds don’t just flee from their predator, the northern pygmy owl: they sometimes actively seek them out to aggressively mob them. But the likelihood of mobbing wasn’t constant: it was highest during late summer and autumn when the owls mostly prey on young birds instead of mammals, and at low altitudes, where the owls are most common. The likelihood of mobbing also increased when there were more songbirds around to dilute the individual risk. The authors conclude that songbirds can tell when the risk of predation from northern pygmy owls is greatest, and mostly ignore these owls at other times of the year. Fleeing isn’t the only way by which songbirds can protect themselves against predators. Many songbird species are known to engage in mobbing, where they gather aggressively around a bird of prey, flying rapidly while making stereotypic movements and loud vocalizations. Mobbing is risky for both parties: birds of preys have been observed to attack their mobbers, while cases are known of birds of prey getting injured by mobbing songbirds. Read original article Download original article (pdf) […]

Engineering

17 Jan 2023

From pylons to pandas: 5 Frontiers articles you won’t want to miss

by Angharad Brewer Gillham, Frontiers science writer Image/Shutterstock.com At Frontiers, we bring some of the world’s best research to a global audience. But with tens of thousands of articles published each year, many often fly under the radar. Here are just five amazing papers you may have missed. Building better-looking pylons Pylons help support essential amenities – but they can be an eyesore. Italian scientists led by Dr Luca Di Angelo at University of L’Aquila investigated the best way to build a pylon with less visual impact on the landscape. As visual impact is subjective, reducing it requires consultation with residents who will see the pylons every day. But designs invented by residents without technical knowledge may not be able to meet safety standards. Di Angelo and colleagues used the development of new electrical pylons in the coastal regions of Italy to test a novel method of integrating visual impact minimization with the design process. They identified shapes which were related to the geography and culture of the area and streamlined enough for pylon design, and surveyed Italians from different coastal regions to determine which shapes were considered most recognizable and representative. A sail was chosen, and models were developed […]

Featured news

09 Dec 2022

Evolution of bat wings and calls through ‘foraging syndromes’ allows diversity to flourish

By Mischa Dijkstra, Frontiers science writer Egyptian slit-faced bats, Nycteris thebaica In a new study, scientists show that the wing shape and the echolocation frequency of bats are tightly linked across species. This pattern could only be identified because of the large dataset in the present study, which allowed the authors to look beyond the effect of bat family on these traits. The results mean that wing shape and echolocation frequency have jointly evolved in response to foraging ecology, yielding an optimal combination of traits or ‘foraging syndrome’ in each habitat. Bats are an evolutionary success story. With approximately 1,400 species living today, they thrive in every environment except the polar regions. They come in a remarkable range of sizes, from the golden-crowned flying fox with a mass of 1.2 kg and a wingspan of 171 cm, to Kitti’s hog-nosed ‘bumblebee’ bat with a mass of 2 g and a wingspan of 33 cm. The frequencies that bats emit during echolocation are also highly variable, ranging from 11 kHz to 212 kHz. But what has driven the evolution of this extraordinary diversity? “Here we show with that among bat species, there is a close correspondence between wing shape and the […]

Featured news

23 Nov 2022

World’s heaviest flying bird may be self-medicating on plants used in traditional medicine

By Mischa Dijkstra, Frontiers science writer Great bustard male displaying on lek. Image credit: Carlos Palacín Researchers show that great bustards in Spain prefer to eat two plant species with compounds active in vitro against protozoa, nematodes, and fungi: corn poppies and purple viper’s bugloss. Males, who spend much time and energy on sexual displays during the mating season, have a stronger preference for these plants than females, and more so during the mating season than at other times of the year. The authors thus consider great bustards as prime candidates for non-human animals that self-medicate, but stress that more research is needed to definitively prove this. If you see a great bustard (Otis tarda) in the wild, you’re unlikely to forget it. Massive, colorful, and impossible to mistake, they are the heaviest birds living today capable of flight, with the greatest size difference between the sexes. They are also ‘lek breeders’, where males gather at chosen sites to put on an audiovisual show for the visiting females, who choose a mate based on his appearance and the quality of his showbirdship. But now, a study in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution suggests that great bustards have another claim to […]

Climate action

04 Nov 2022

From ghost gear to microbe memories: 4 Frontiers articles you won’t want to miss

by Angharad Brewer Gillham, Frontiers science writer Image: Shutterstock.com At Frontiers, we bring some of the world’s best research to a global audience. But with tens of thousands of articles published each year, many often fly under the radar. Here are just four amazing papers you may have missed. The hunt for ghost gear 25-30% of the plastic waste in the sea is lost fishing gear, or ‘ghost gear’, some of it now up to 60 years old. This ghost gear devastates the environment not only through continuing to trap fish, but also by shedding microplastics into the environment which then enter the food chain. Once it sinks as far as the sea floor, it becomes invisible from above – a hidden threat to the marine ecosystem. A team led by Andrea Stolte from the World Wildlife Foundation, writing in Frontiers in Marine Science, reported a successful ghost-hunting collaboration between fisherfolk, scientists, and divers in the Baltic Sea. This coalition of stakeholders had several options for hunting down the ghost gear. Traditionally, when lost gear is spotted, fisherfolk use search hooks and other similar tools to try to retrieve it. However, this proved to be inefficient and damaging to the […]

Environment

21 Oct 2022

Secret behind spectacular blooms in world’s driest desert is invisible to human eyes

By Mischa Dijkstra, Frontiers science writer The 2021 ‘desierto florido’ near Caldera, Chile. The purple flowers are the pussypaw Cistanthe longiscapa (family Montiaceae), the object of this study. Image credit: Oven Pérez-Nates A ‘desierto florido’ mass bloom happened in the northern Atacama desert in 2021, which was even visible from space. Researchers used advanced imaging techniques to measure the variation in flower color and pattern for the dominant species, the pussypaw Cistanthe longiscapa. They found that this variation is much greater when viewed by the UV-sensitive eyes of hymenopteran pollinators, and caused by differences in the mix of betalain pigments in the petals. Evolution is probably ongoing, driven by the species-specific visual preferences of pollinators, which could ultimately lead to new species. The Atacama desert, which stretches for approximately 1,600 km along the western coast of the cone of South America, is the driest place on Earth. Some weather stations there have never recorded rainfall throughout their existence. But it‘s far from barren: many species live here that occur nowhere else, adapted to its extreme conditions. And approximately every five to 10 years, from September to mid-November, the Atacama hosts one of the most spectacular sights of the natural world: […]

Environment

13 Oct 2022

From chili-heat pain relief to blue whale migration: 5 Frontiers articles you won’t want to miss

by Angharad Brewer Gillham, Frontiers science writer Image: Shutterstock.com At Frontiers, we bring some of the world’s best research to a global audience. But with tens of thousands of articles published each year, many often fly under the radar. Here are just five amazing papers you may have missed. Chili to the rescue: Modulating capsaicin as a treatment for chronic itching Pain and itching are both signals that help humans protect themselves, by prompting us to end contact with whatever causes us pain or make us itch. However, they are also key symptoms of many disorders, and can be frustratingly difficult to treat. Scientists from the Universidad Miguel Hernández, writing in Frontiers in Molecular Neuroscience, investigated whether transient receptor potential channels, which pick up sensory cues ranging from the taste of wasabi to changes in pH, could help treat pain and itching. Previous attempts to exploit these channels to stop pain and itching have not been successful because they cause overheating as a side effect, so the authors suggested that ‘soft’ modulation of the channels might be more patient-friendly, targeting only the channels that aren’t working correctly. While there are several existing medications which use capsaicin to target these channels, […]

Environment

12 Oct 2022

The ultimate death stare: How moth wing patterns scare off predatory birds with amazing optical illusion

by Dr Hannah Rowland, Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology, and Dr John Skelhorn, Newcastle University Image: Dr Hannah Rowland Many prey species have eyespot markings that are believed to ward off predators. But how, and does a predator’s angle of approach make them less effective? Dr Hannah Rowland and Dr John Skelhorn write for Frontiers about their research, published today in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, into how these protective patterns on moth wings convince birds it’s not worth attacking the insects. How art mirrors life when it comes to moth wings Have you ever felt that a person in a portrait is watching you, their eyes following you about a room? This optical illusion is known as the Mona Lisa effect, after Leonardo da Vinci’s famously enigmatic painting. When artists paint their sitter’s eyes with the pupils perfectly centered, no matter where visitors stand – to the left, right, or in front of the painting – eye contact is guaranteed. Nature seems to have hit upon the same idea. But in the animal kingdom it can be a matter of life or death. Many species of fish, butterflies, moths, praying mantids, and beetles have paired circular markings on […]

Environment

23 Sep 2022

Bees, blue light, and bacteria in beetles’ ‘back pockets’: Most viewed articles of August 2022

Image: Shutterstock.com by Angharad Brewer Gillham, Frontiers science writer Each month, Frontiers shines a spotlight on some of the leading research across a wide range of topics. Here are just some of the highlights that resonated strongly with readers on our news site in the month of August. 1. Modern pesticides make it hard for bees to keep on the straight and narrow Research published in Frontiers in Insect Science showed that common pesticides affected bees’ brains so that they couldn’t orient themselves properly. Bees exposed to sulfoxaflor and imidacloprid were tested on their ability to respond to stimuli that tricked them into thinking they’d been blown off course, a situation which required them to use their optomotor response to reorient themselves. Compared to control bees, they performed very poorly, reacting inappropriately or not at all to the stimuli. The problem seems to be caused by damage to the nervous system, but the exact mechanism is unclear. Since bees need this optomotor response to travel between different sources of pollen, and since these insecticides are widely used, this is a source of significant concern. The authors tested the optomotor response in walking bees rather than flying bees, so further research […]

Featured news

15 Aug 2022

Humans have totally altered small mammal communities in just a few centuries

By Suzanna Burgelman, science writer Image: Paul Abrahams/Shutterstock.com Researchers have found that small mammal communities today are fundamentally different from even a few centuries ago, during North America’s pre-colonial past. They identified small mammal remains from the Anthropocene and archaeological Holocene along a geographical area with varying degrees of human impact and examined diversity across these sites and time periods. Optimistically, the researchers also found that even small, protected spaces can conserve native small mammal communities, highlighting their important role in urban conservation projects. Characterized by rapid climate change, pollution, and landscape alteration, the Anthropocene is an unofficial unit of geological time and is defined as the most recent period in Earth’s history (from the 1950s to present) when human activity started to have a significant impact on the planet’s ecosystems and climate. This impact is increasingly modifying natural ecosystems and threatening biodiversity, for example by quickly expanding urbanization. Researchers at Stanford University have now discovered that modern small mammal communities from the Anthropocene are less diverse and are differently structured then even a few centuries ago, during the Holocene (around 500 years ago), showing the extent of the impacts of human activities on our ecosystems. The results were published […]

Featured news

11 Aug 2022

Researchers challenge claim of historic human brain ‘shrinking’ and 3 other papers you don’t want to miss

By Colm Gorey and Mischa Dijkstra, Frontiers science writers Image: Shutterstock.com At Frontiers, we bring some of the world’s best research to a global audience. But with tens of thousands of articles published each year, many often fly under the radar. Here are just five amazing papers you may have missed. Researchers challenge idea that human brains shrank 3,000 years ago Last year, an article published to Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution made headlines across the world after it claimed human brains shrank in size approximately 3,000 years ago. This, according to the authors, may have driven by the externalization of knowledge in human societies, thus needing less energy to store a lot of information as individuals. As a result, we developed smaller brains. However, in a recent article, also published to Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, another team of researchers challenged this notion, questioning several of the original paper’s key hypotheses. Speaking to his university, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, anthropologist Brian Vilmoare said that “human brain size has not changed in 30,000 years, and probably not in 300,000 years”. In fact, he added, “based on this dataset, we can identify no reduction in brain size in modern […]

Featured news

02 Aug 2022

Yoda-like tarsiers push virtuoso singing to their physiological limits

By Mischa Dijkstra, Frontiers science writer Pair of Gursky’s spectral tarsiers, Tarsius spectrumgurskyae. Image credit: Arie de Gier / Shutterstock.com Researchers show that the notes within duets between female and male Gursky’s spectral tarsiers on Sulawesi are taxing for the singers, presumably due to physiological constraints. An individual’s ‘virtuosity’ in singing these demanding notes could thus signal fitness to conspecifics, similarly to the costly tail of peacocks. Opera arias are typically rich in coloratura, for example fast, high notes that stretch over a wide frequency range. Coloratura aren’t just beautiful to listen to: they are also designed to allow the best singers to show off their virtuosity. Now, researchers from Sam Ratulangi University in Indonesia and Cornell University in the US show that pairs of Gursky’s spectral tarsier sing duets that have evolved to similarly show off virtuosity – at least, for those individuals that manage to pull off their species’ version of coloratura: rapidly repeated broadband notes emitted in coordination to form a duet between adult males and females. The results are published today in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution. The researchers show that not all tarsiers can sing these duets equally well. Some Gursky’s spectral tarsiers achieve a […]

Featured news

09 Jun 2022

Could cranberries help us prevent dementia? Check out 5 fascinating Frontiers articles you don’t want to miss

By Colm Gorey, Frontiers Science Communications Manager Image: Jean Beaufort At Frontiers, we bring some of the world’s best research to a global audience. But with tens of thousands of articles published each year, many often fly under the radar. Here are just five amazing papers you may have missed. Daily eating of cranberries may give us a memory boost and lower ‘bad’ cholesterol The famous proverb says that an apple a day keeps the doctor away, but a recent study published to Frontiers in Nutrition has found that significant health benefits may come from eating a cup of cranberries a day. A team of researchers from the UK, the Netherlands, and Italy set out to see what benefits this daily dose of the popular berry would have on those aged between 50 and 80. Of those taking part in the study, half ate freeze-dried cranberry powder equivalent to 100g of fresh cranberries, while the other half were given a placebo. The results showed that those who were eating cranberries daily saw a significant improvement in their memory of everyday events, neural functioning, and delivery of blood to the brain. The researchers hope that their findings could have implications for […]