ResearchBlogging.org News

Jarrett Byrnes (back from Tjärnö) focuses on posts in ecology, environmental sciences, and evolution. He blogs at I’m a chordata, urochordata!

• Sometimes, you look at your relatives at a family reunion, and wonder – did you really all come from the same original ancestors? When it comes to all life on earth, the answer is yes.

• Parasatoid wasps shape evolution in the strangest ways. For example, they turn butterfly mate-blocking hormones into a disadvantage for males by using it as a means to hone in on new hosts.

• No one knows quite what the consequences of ocean acidification will be. An exploration of the Paleo record shows that we should expect both large extinctions and a huge shrinkage in the size of reefs.

• Turtle-exclusion-devices are one of the success stories of marine conservation. But that doesn’t mean huge numbers of turtles aren’t being accidentally killed by other fishing practices.