News tagged with herbivores
Lollipops with side effects: Plant's sugary offering betrays caterpillars to predatory ants
Trichomes, hair-like projections on leaves, are part of a plant's defense against herbivores: they can be obstacles, traps, or reservoirs for toxic substances. The hairs of wild tobacco Nicotiana attenuata ...
Apr 25, 2011 |
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Drought-exposed leaves adversely affect soil nutrients, study shows
Chemical changes in tree leaves subjected to warmer, drier conditions that could result from climate change may reduce the availability of soil nutrients, according to a Purdue University study.
Apr 05, 2011 |
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Fast growth, low defense -- plants facing a dilemma
Plants are attacked by a multitude of insects and mammals. As defense against these herbivores they developed complex defense mechanisms over the course of evolution: spines, thorns, leaf hairs and a number of toxic chemical ...
Jan 28, 2011 |
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SU biologist partners with National Park Service to study bison grazing in Yellowstone
While Yellowstone's celebrated bison may be among the most popular tourist attractions in the park, their grazing habits and increasing numbers have raised questions about the long-term stability of the park's grasslands. ...
Dec 20, 2010 |
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Horse-dragon and colossal iguana: Scientists identify new beaked herbivorous dinosaurs
(PhysOrg.com) -- Paleontologists from the University of Pennsylvania and the Utah Geological Survey have described two skeletons representing two new species of beaked herbivorous dinosaurs, known as iguanodonts, ...
Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils
Nov 23, 2010 |
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Using discards, scientists discover different dinosaurs' stomping grounds
(PhysOrg.com) -- By examining the type of rock in which dinosaur fossils were embedded, an often unappreciated part of the remains, scientists have determined that different species of North American dinosaurs ...
Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils
Oct 14, 2010 |
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Six times more insects in tropical mountains
How many species of insects exist? Umea University researcher, Genoveva Rodriguez-Castaneda, found that in tropical mountains there are six times more insects than shown in global calculations. The insects ...
Sep 06, 2010 |
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Lethal backfire: Green odor with fatal consequences for voracious caterpillars
During field studies, scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology discovered that the oral secretions of tobacco hornworm larvae contain a particular substance that promptly ...
Aug 26, 2010 |
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Making its predators tremble: Multiple defenses act synergistically in aspen
If plants did not defend themselves in some way, they would certainly be gobbled up by a whole suite of voracious predators ranging from little insects to large mammalian herbivores. Indeed, not only do plants defend themselves, ...
Apr 23, 2010 |
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Study Affirms Importance of Insect-Eating Animals to Ecosystem Health
(PhysOrg.com) -- Lions, tigers and bears top the ecological pyramid-the diagram of the food chain that every school child knows. They eat smaller animals, feeding on energy that flows up from the base where ...
Apr 15, 2010 |
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Biologists discover an on/off button on plants' alarm system
Scientists connected to VIB and Ghent University have discovered how plants turn their defense mechanisms on and off. The system is apparently controlled by a key protein that the researchers have named "NINJA." The discovery ...
Apr 01, 2010 |
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Plants can grow quickly or ward off hungry insects, but not both: research
There's a war occurring each day in our backyards - plant versus plant-eating insect versus insect-eating insect. Research by UC Irvine's Kailen Mooney suggests the outcome - of interest to farmers - is a ...
Mar 25, 2010 |
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Bacterial gut symbionts are tightly linked with the evolution of herbivory in ants
Broadly speaking, ants have two different feeding strategies. A large proportion of all species are "carnivorous," meaning that they are generalist predators feeding on other small animals or scavenging on ...
Dec 01, 2009 |
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Chicken-hearted tyrants: Predatory dinosaurs as baby killers
Two titans fighting a bloody battle -- that often turns fatal for both of them. This is how big predatory dinosaurs like Tyrannosaurus are often depicted while hunting down their supposed prey: even larger herbivorous dinosaurs. ...
Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils
Aug 06, 2009 |
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Sex involved in plant defense
Why do some plants defend themselves from insect attacks better than others? New evidence shows that the difference might be due to whether they're getting any plant love.
Jul 13, 2009 |
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