16 posts · 12,097 views
A zoology blog reporting on research and news related to conservation, ecology, and biodiversity.
Anne-Marie Hodge
16 posts
Sort by: Latest Post, Most Popular
View by: Condensed, Full
- August 18, 2011
- 04:14 PM
- 791 views
Contagious Cancer, Beyond the Devils
by Anne-Marie Hodge in Endless Forms
Few health issues strike a deeper chord of fear than that of cancer--your own body's tissues being hijacked, turning against you and taking over. An estimated 1,596,670 new cancer cases (not including some types of skin cancer, which are not...... Read more »
Rebbeck, C., Thomas, R., Breen, M., Leroi, A., & Burt, A. (2009) ORIGINS AND EVOLUTION OF A TRANSMISSIBLE CANCER. Evolution, 63(9), 2340-2349. DOI: 10.1111/j.1558-5646.2009.00724.x
- July 14, 2011
- 07:09 PM
- 814 views
Polar Bears Have a Touch of the Irish
by Anne-Marie Hodge in Endless Forms
One cannot always judge a species by its cover. For example, grizzly and polar bears are in no danger of being mistaken for one another morphologically, and yet molecular studies have shown that the polar bear is actually nested within...... Read more »
Edwards, C., Suchard, M., Lemey, P., Welch, J., Barnes, I., Fulton, T., Barnett, R., O'Connell, T., Coxon, P., Monaghan, N.... (2011) Ancient Hybridization and an Irish Origin for the Modern Polar Bear Matriline. Current Biology. DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2011.05.058
- June 23, 2011
- 06:45 PM
- 868 views
Brown Long-Eared Bat Rediscovered on Isles of Scilly
by Anne-Marie Hodge in Endless Forms
What is better than catching an animal that belongs to a species thought to have been extirpated for half a century? Discovering that the animal is a pregnant female, of course. With species going extinct at unprecedented rates across the...... Read more »
Eklof, J. (2003) Use of vision in prey detection by brown long-eared bats, Plecotus auritus. Animal Behaviour, 66(5), 949-953. DOI: 10.1006/anbe.2003.2272
- May 15, 2011
- 12:04 PM
- 438 views
A Pain in the Neck: Homeosis in Sloths and Manatees
by Anne-Marie Hodge in Endless Forms
Many people have heard the fascinating factoid that the comically elongated necks of giraffes actually comprise the same number of cervical (neck) vertebrae as humans, and it's absolutely true--the giraffe's neck vertebrae are each stretched out to nearly 10 inches...... Read more »
Varela-Lasheras, I., Bakker, A., van der Mije, S., Metz, J., van Alphen, J., & Galis, F. (2011) Breaking evolutionary and pleiotropic constraints in mammals. On sloths, manatees and homeotic mutations. EvoDevo, 2(1), 11. DOI: 10.1186/2041-9139-2-11
- March 31, 2011
- 12:06 PM
- 892 views
Updated Heights of Immensity for Arctotherium: New Record for Largest Known Bear
by Anne-Marie Hodge in Endless Forms
South America is currently home to a single species of ursid, the highly elusive and uniquely patterned spectacled bear ( Tremarctos ornatus ). This species is slightly diminutive in size compared to other bears, and is known for being fairly...... Read more »
LEOPOLDO H. SOIBELZON AND BLAINE W. SCHUBERT. (2011) THE LARGEST KNOWN BEAR, ARCTOTHERIUM ANGUSTIDENS, FROM THE EARLY PLEISTOCENE PAMPEAN REGION OF ARGENTINA: WITH A DISCUSSION OF SIZE AND DIET TRENDS IN BEARS. Journal of Paleontology, 85(1), 69-75. info:/10.1666/10-037.1
- March 6, 2011
- 09:16 AM
- 973 views
Woolly Bats Use a Carnivorous Roost
by Anne-Marie Hodge in Endless Forms
Although many people tend to think of nature as being "red in tooth and claw," with different species constantly at odds with one another in a scramble for survival, ecological communities are actually bursting with mutualistic relationships in which species...... Read more »
Grafe, T., Schoner, C., Kerth, G., Junaidi, A., & Schoner, M. (2011) A novel resource-service mutualism between bats and pitcher plants. Biology Letters. DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2010.1141
- January 20, 2011
- 11:30 AM
- 569 views
Allee Effects, Round Two: Component versus Demographic Effects
by Anne-Marie Hodge in Endless Forms
In my last post, we discussed Allee effects and the importance of taking those factors into consideration when making plans for managing threatened species. This time, I'm going to pick the Allee effect apart just a little bit more. Much...... Read more »
ANGULO, E., ROEMER, G., BEREC, L., GASCOIGNE, J., & COURCHAMP, F. (2007) Double Allee Effects and Extinction in the Island Fox. Conservation Biology, 21(4), 1082-1091. DOI: 10.1111/j.1523-1739.2007.00721.x
- June 6, 2010
- 05:48 PM
- 701 views
Of Bears, Berries, and Hoofed Invaders
by Anne-Marie Hodge in Endless Forms
There are few images more fearsome than that of an angry bear, with teeth bared and claws flashing. It is intriguing, then, to consider a community in which a population of mighty ursids was driven to extinction by a diminutive...... Read more »
COTE, S. (2005) Extirpation of a Large Black Bear Population by Introduced White-Tailed Deer. Conservation Biology, 19(5), 1668-1671. DOI: 10.1111/j.1523-1739.2005.00252.x
- May 2, 2010
- 06:42 PM
- 675 views
Boozing Treeshrews: Heavyweight drinkers in small packages
by Anne-Marie Hodge in Endless Forms
Although political and moral stances on alcohol use have gone back and forth over the decades, anthropological studies suggest that low-level alcohol ingestion has been an important factor in primate evolution. Alcohol is associated with ripe, nutrient-rich fruits, in addition...... Read more »
Wiens, F., Zitzmann, A., Lachance, M., Yegles, M., Pragst, F., Wurst, F., von Holst, D., Guan, S., & Spanagel, R. (2008) Chronic intake of fermented floral nectar by wild treeshrews. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105(30), 10426-10431. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0801628105
- April 28, 2010
- 08:05 PM
- 665 views
Saving face: Salamanders show why it's important to know thy enemies
by Anne-Marie Hodge in Endless Forms
In the past I have focused on reviewing newly published literature, but I have decided to periodically take a look back at some "classic" zoology papers. Defining "classic" is difficult, I am using the slightly arbitrary criteria that the paper...... Read more »
Jaeger, R. (1981) Dear Enemy Recognition and the Costs of Aggression between Salamanders. The American Naturalist, 117(6), 962. DOI: 10.1086/283780
- March 3, 2010
- 10:55 AM
- 644 views
Radar Deterrents Save Bats
by Anne-Marie Hodge in Endless Forms
Harvesting wind power is a fast-growing form of alternative energy technology, and U.S. interest in the wind industry is growing, as we work towards diversifying our energy grid. New turbines are being erected across the nation, and the prospects for...... Read more »
Nicholls, B., & Racey, P. (2009) The Aversive Effect of Electromagnetic Radiation on Foraging Bats—A Possible Means of Discouraging Bats from Approaching Wind Turbines. PLoS ONE, 4(7). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0006246
- March 1, 2010
- 08:27 PM
- 711 views
Fossil Snake Snacks on Sauropods
by Anne-Marie Hodge in Endless Forms
The patchy and elusive nature of the fossil record offers us limited glimpses as to what life was like during ancient times. Often, details of behavior and interspecific interactions are left open to interpretation and speculation. But occasionally, a sudden catastrophe caught ancient animals by surprise, killing and preserving them in a moment of activity. This is rather unfortunate at the time, but proves a boon to inquisitive hominds all these years later. This is exactly the case ........ Read more »
Wilson JA, Mohabey DM, Peters SE, Head JJ. (2010) Predation upon hatchling dinosaurs by a new snake from the Late Cretaceous of India. PLoS Biology, 8(3). info:/10.1371/journal.pbio.1000322
- January 19, 2010
- 01:55 PM
- 679 views
Crown Jewel of Biodiversity on the Edge
by Anne-Marie Hodge in Endless Forms
This week, PLoS has a new paper which reports the conservation significance of a truly astounding region in Ecuador. (Ecuador also happens to be the country in which I am conducting my thesis research, although my work is at a higher elevation in the eastern Andean foothills). The new paper by Bass et al. focuses on the Yasuni National Park, which is situated in a biodiversity hotspot, in the area where the eastern Andes foothills meet the western Amazon rainforest. It was declared a ........ Read more »
Bass, M., Finer, M., Jenkins, C., Kreft, H., Cisneros-Heredia, D., McCracken, S., Pitman, N., English, P., Swing, K., Villa, G.... (2010) Global Conservation Significance of Ecuador's Yasuní National Park. PLoS ONE, 5(1). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0008767
- November 10, 2009
- 11:25 PM
- 807 views
High Octane Dinosaurs
by Anne-Marie Hodge in Endless Forms
The question of whether dinosaurs were endothermic has been a rich source of controversy for decades. Although they were originally portrayed as sluggish reptiles that crept their “cold-blooded” way through the Mesozoic, over time evidence has suggested that they may have actually had active and athletic lifestyles, with fast-running metabolisms to match. Everything from growth rates to diet to integument has been used as evidence that dinosaurs, if not as fully “war........ Read more »
Pontzer, H., Allen, V., & Hutchinson, J. (2009) Biomechanics of Running Indicates Endothermy in Bipedal Dinosaurs. PLoS ONE, 4(11). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0007783
- August 30, 2009
- 07:56 PM
- 942 views
Bears Avoid the Road Less Traveled
by Anne-Marie Hodge in Endless Forms
National Geographic has an interesting report on predator-prey issues in national parks: apparently pregnant moose in Yellowstone National Park and Grand Teton National Park tend to shift their activity closer to roads before giving birth, in order to avoid predation by grizzly bears.
According to the results of the study, bears tend to be much more wary of roadways than moose. Grizzlies usually give keep at least a 5000 meter clearance, while moose have been recorded giving birth with........ Read more »
Reynolds-Hogland, M., Mitchell, M., Powell, R., & Brown, D. (2007) SELECTION OF DEN SITES BY BLACK BEARS IN THE SOUTHERN APPALACHIANS. Journal of Mammalogy, 88(4), 1062-1073. DOI: 10.1644/06-MAMM-A-329R1.1
- August 16, 2009
- 12:36 PM
- 928 views
Can Diversity Beat Adversity for Tigers?
by Anne-Marie Hodge in Endless Forms
I did my undergraduate degree at Auburn University, which is both a fantastic research institution and (in my exceedingly biased opinion), the crown jewel of Southern college football. I have spent many autumn Saturdays crammed in Jordan-Hare Stadium with 87,000 other people (keep in mind that the entire population of the town is around 40,000), and never ceased to be amazed at such a huge aggregation of humans, all there just to watch a game. The conservation biologist in me always f........ Read more »
Mondol, S., Karanth, K., & Ramakrishnan, U. (2009) Why the Indian Subcontinent Holds the Key to Global Tiger Recovery. PLoS Genetics, 5(8). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1000585
topics
join us!
Do you write about peer-reviewed research in your blog? Use ResearchBlogging.org to make it easy for your readers — and others from around the world — to find your serious posts about academic research.
If you don't have a blog, you can still use our site to learn about fascinating developments in cutting-edge research from around the world.
