'Walking' Bat Once Roamed Ancient New Zealand

Pictured: Mystacina tuberculata (Photo : Rod Morris)

Scientists have discovered the fossilized remains of a new "walking" bat species, which lived 16 million years ago, and roamed ancient New Zealand.

According to a study published in the journal PLOS ONE, Mystacina miocenalis walked on four limbs and was three times larger than today's average bat. Interestingly, it's even related to another bat, Mystacina tuberculata, which still inhabits New Zealand's old growth forests.

"Our discovery shows for the first time that Mystacina bats have been present in New Zealand for upwards of 16 million years, residing in habitats with very similar plant life and food sources," lead author and vertebrate palaeontologist Suzanne Hand, from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Australia, said in a press release.

The fossils were found near Central Otago on South Island, in sediment left over from a vast prehistoric body of water known as Lake Manuherikia, which was part of warmer subtropical rainforest during the early Miocene era, between 16 and 19-million-years-ago.

These bats were believed to have an ancient history in New Zealand, but until now, the oldest fossil of a Mystacina bat found in the region dated back 17,500 years ago. This latest discovery makes scientists question when these strangle walking bats first arrived to New Zealand.

"This helps us understand the capacity of bats to establish populations on islands and the climatic conditions required for this to happen," noted Hand.

"Bats are important pollinators and seed dispersers that keep forests healthy. Understanding the connectivity between the bat faunas of different landmasses is important for evaluating biosecurity threats and conservation priorities for fragile island ecosystems," she added.

The new species is similar to its contemporary relative in that it has similar teeth - most likely used for a balanced diet of nectar, pollen, fruit and insects. Limb bones found in the deposit also showed similar structures specialized for walking.

Where they differ, however, is in body size. M. miocenalis weighs about 40 grams, which is three times heavier than M. tuberculata and 900 other living bat species. Due to its abnormally large size, researchers believe the new species was more adept at hunting on the ground than in the air.

"The size of bats is physically constrained by the demands of flight and echolocation, as you need to be small, quick and accurate to chase insects in the dark," Hand explained.

For more great nature science stories and general news, please visit our sister site, Headlines and Global News (HNGN).

post from sitemap

Bees: Only a Few Needed to Pollinate World's Crops, New Study Suggests

(Photo : serkucher / Fotolia)

It turns out that only a few "busy bees" are needed to pollinate the world's crops, according to a new international study.

The paper, published in the journal Nature Communications, suggests that only two percent of wild bee species pollinate 80 percent of bee-pollinated crops worldwide.

While everything from climate change, pesticides and pathogens have been shown to produce sharp declines in many wild bee populations, nonetheless they can remain abundant in agricultural landscapes.

That's important, considering that pollinating bees contribute about $3,000 per hectare of land to the agricultural industry - a number in the billions globally. Not to mention about two-thirds of the world's most important crops benefit from bee pollination, including coffee, cacao and many fruits and vegetables.

"This study shows us that wild bees provide enormous economic benefits, but reaffirms that the justification for protecting species cannot always be economic," Taylor Ricketts of the University of Vermont's Gund Institute For Ecological Economics, a study co-author, said in a statement. "We still have to agree that protecting biodiversity is the right thing to do."

The most important wild bees for agriculture include some of the world's most common species, like the common eastern bumblebee (Bombus impatiens) in the United States and the red-tailed bumblebee (Bombus lapidarius) in Europe, authors say.

Honeybees are also important, but with honeybee colonies especially in rapid decline, wild pollination is now more vital than ever.

"Species and populations can fluctuate significantly as landscapes and climates change," noted Ricketts. "So protecting a wide variety of our wild bees is crucial."

The study highlights certain bee-friendly practices for farmers to consider in order to preserve bee biodiversity, including maintaining wildflowers and grass strips, organic farming techniques, and limiting - or delaying - the use of pesticides and other chemicals.

For more great nature science stories and general news, please visit our sister site, Headlines and Global News (HNGN).

post from sitemap

Keep a father’s identity secret, Is it good?

 

At Carolyn: My mother said she did not tell me who is my father, and the secret of the grave with his will. There is always a reason not to say to someone who is your father?

If you are unsure of herself.

If he committed these heinous crimes he fears it could change the way you see yourself.

If it was and is still married to her sister, cousin, best friend.

If you reveal your name reveal something embarrassing for his choice or the circumstances of his birth in the past.

If she promised that she would take his secret identity to the grave.

If a sperm donor and she thinks there's something wrong with admitting that.

Of course there are others.

Some of them are good enough to justify secrecy? I can not say because it depends on you, your mother, and secrecy. However, this sounds like it could alleviate their (fully justified) to treat anxiety at the thought that his mother has his reasons - and that even if they are not good enough for them, they are pretty good at it domain or she does not do for you.

Even if ultimately not accept that, at least you can say to your mother directly after a serene careful reflection, to make peace with him somehow - vs. take her, awaiting her response force.

This does not guarantee the truth from suffering - not even close - but how to understand each other, that's how you and your mother can avoid losing the other as you want to try to find what you need.

Dear Carolyn: My daughter is 40 years old, never married, no children. She loves being in a relationship. But she says she does not like being around family because all are paired. We invite you to a family holiday, but now you're talking will not do it because it is one that is unique. Besides suggesting board (it has done in the past), there is nothing we can do to make her feel more included?

Anonymous

To suggest recommendations at this point would only isolate it, do not you think? Inclusive would treat it as simply good company, complete in itself.

You can for this purpose - you all couples - groups that are not the same tight-plus-daughter going to the store, peer-most-beautiful-girl go for a walk, etc. Instead, a double A husband, wife and daughter-Double B go for a walk. Scholarships vs. co

By Carolyn Hax

Endangered Tigers Could be Saved by Higher Palm Oil Prices

(Photo : Flickr: Christopher Kray)

It seems backwards, but tigers and other endangered species could be saved by higher palm oil prices, according to new research.

Palm oil is used in roughly 50 percent of supermarket products today, including many processed foods and cosmetics. This demand has resulted in tropical forests getting cut down to make way for profitable palm oil plantations, which in turn has devastated a large number of plant and animal species - including tigers, elephants, rhinos and orangutans.

Curiously though, a new study by North American and UK researchers has found that consumers will pay higher prices - between 15 and 56 percent more - for palm oil made by companies that help to protect endangered species, an incentive that may lead these animals on the road to recovery.

"One way to save species and biodiversity threatened by agricultural expansion is to show companies the business case for conservation," study co-author Professor Brendan Fisher, of the University of Vermont's Gund Institute for Ecological Economics, said in a statement. "This study shows how important it is for industry and scientists to work together to find potential win-win solutions."

Fisher and his colleagues assessed the finances of a major palm oil company to determine the impacts of conserving land on biodiversity and profits. The results, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that the profits made from consumers willing to pay more for sustainable palm oil more than covered the costs of preserving land for endangered wildlife.

"International governments have failed to stem the environmental damage caused by oil palm plantations," said lead author Ian Bateman of the University of East Anglia (UEA). "We wanted to find a new way of halting biodiversity loss that actually becomes profitable for private companies."

For the study, researchers surveyed palm plantations, nurseries, forests and cleared land in Sumatra, the Indonesian island where tropical forests have been replaced by palm oil plantations, resulting in significant species declines.

(Photo : Pixabay)

Researchers determined that areas near existing forests were best for conservation, while areas away from existing roads reduced the impacts on company profits. They used these rules to identify which areas promoted biodiversity at the least cost to oil palm companies.

Remarkably, the study found that even in low-productivity regions, a 15 percent price premium could persuade a 32,000-hectare plantation to conserve up to 6,000 hectares.

"This research is critical because one fifth of the world's vertebrates are at imminent risk of extinction," added Robin Naidoo of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). "The overwhelming cause of this biodiversity loss is land-use change, driven by the expansion of agriculture and plantations for crops such as oil palm. Conversion to agriculture is resulting in the loss of tropical forests at an estimated rate of 13 million hectares each year, therefore it is imperative we find solutions that minimize the negative impact of agriculture on biodiversity."

"Consumers' willingness to pay for sustainably grown palm oil has the potential to incentivise private producers enough to engage in conservation activities. This would support vulnerable 'Red List' species," noted UEA's Bateman. "Combining all of these findings together allows us to harness the power of the market and identify locations where cost-effective and even profitable conservation can take place."

For more great nature science stories and general news, please visit our sister site, Headlines and Global News (HNGN).

post from sitemap

Climate Change and Habitat Loss: How Animals Adapt [INTERVIEW]

Painted bunting (Passerina ciris) (Photo : Dan Pancamo/Wikimedia Commons)

Climate change and habitat loss are two major threats posed to animal species worldwide. And especially with global temperatures rising in recent decades (2014 was the hottest year yet), scientists are now concerned more than ever with the survival of Earth's animals. However, recent research suggests that they are more flexible than you thinnk.

Nature World News (NWN) recently spoke with biologist Jeffrey Kelly, of the University of Oklahoma, who found that airborne species - such as birds, bats and insects - have learned some ways to adapt.

"In particular what we're really interested in is broad scale patterns of phenology - so the timing of seasonal events and what [that] can tell us about how our planet's changing, and particularly how these migratory organisms are responding to those changes," Kelly, with the Oklahoma Biological Survey, told NWN.

Kelly and his colleagues focused on tracking bird species such as the painted bunting and the purple martin, and also used existing radar data to measure on a broad scale the timing of seasonal events. This way, they could get a better understanding how those events change over time and space, and thus impact the behavior and movements of these animals.

Though their study did not provide specific examples from their own tracked birds, the general belief among scientists is that some bird species change their migration patterns - by moving to different places and at unusual times - to compensate for their changing environments. Specifically, some species have been seen arriving at their wintering ground earlier due to climate warming.

So what exactly tips these birds off that they need to get moving earlier and earlier?

"It looks like it is local food conditions," Kelly notes.

However, previous research shows that the same adaptability cannot be said of songbird species traveling over very large distances. Climate change may cause spring to arrive earlier and earlier, and yet these birds just cannot adjust - a problem referred to as trophic mismatch.

"The thinking is that these long-distance migrants are using day length as a cue in the spring as to when they should migrate because day length doesn't change from year to year," Kelly explained.

However, "that creates the obvious problem that if year after year spring is advancing in the Arctic and you're using day length as a cue to migrate, then you are going to miss the peak of spring because you're too late."

"You can think of these migrants as being already in the neighborhood," he continued, "and they can perhaps use the local conditions - let's say in Oklahoma or Texas - to tell them reasonably what it might be like in North Dakota or South Dakota. So they might be able to time their migration more to the local plant phenology. Whereas if you're a long-distance migrant - say you're in Africa or South America and you're going to the Arctic - the conditions where you are unlikely have anything to do with the conditions where you're headed. And so that's why the longer distance migrants rely more heavily on day length as a proxy for the beginning of migration, and possibly makes them more susceptible to these trophic mismatches."

But climate change doesn't just bring higher temperatures; it also will likely bring worse droughts - in some cases even megadroughts, like in the western United States, for example. This extreme weather has a negative impact on various animal species, such as bats.

(Photo : USFWS/Ann Froschauer) Pictured: Mexican free-tailed bats exiting Bracken Bat Cave in Texas.

"Drought is very hard on bats. It impacts their ability to be reproductively successful. If they don't breed it has a hard impact on their population," researcher Winifred Frick, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, told NWN.

When water is scarce, it affects the timing of when bats emerge from their caves to go out and forage. Not to mention that females, when they're lactating and nursing their young, are very dependent on water. And with the West, most notably California, experiencing drought more and more in recent years, the fear is that bat populations will suffer unless they learn to adapt.

"I think in general we have reasons to believe drought is hard on bat populations. Bats are dependent on insects, and to the extent that there is less water and less insects, there is going to be less food available," Frick added.

So in the face of climate change and habitat loss, what will the future look like for these and other animal species?

"I think we'll get new species in places they never were before. I think we'll lose species where they are now. Some of the species that are in trouble now might be gone," Kelly said. "But there might be other species in trouble that for whatever reason don't do as poorly in the future."

Only time will tell, but this and other research has shown that animals are for the most part resilient and can learn to adapt. Besides birds changing their migration patterns, pikas have taken to higher ground, tiny killifish have learned to survive in both freshwater and saltwater, and water fleas are even reproducing differently.

 

For more great nature science stories and general news, please visit our sister site, Headlines and Global News (HNGN).

post from sitemap