As efforts are being undertaken to protect salt marshes – and the threatened salt marsh sparrow – from the rising seas, scientists may be ignoring an unexpectedly important player in this environmental drama: grasshoppers.
Ecology
Sep 12, 2018
0
3
Why does the egg size of house sparrows vary so much? Isn't it always an advantage to be big?
Ecology
Aug 9, 2018
0
7
Scientists studying winter flocks of golden-crowned sparrows at the UC Santa Cruz Arboretum have discovered surprisingly complex social behavior in these small migratory birds. A new study reveals that the sparrows have different ...
Ecology
Jul 25, 2018
0
71
What makes human cultural traditions unique? One common answer is that we are better copycats than other species, which allows us to pass our habits and ways of life down through the generations without losing or forgetting ...
Plants & Animals
Jun 20, 2018
0
165
When female birds have chicks as the result of an extra-marital fling, the fathers are almost always older males, and scientists are finding out why.
Plants & Animals
May 31, 2018
0
35
Understanding the factors that affect a bird species' nesting success can be crucial for planning effective conservation efforts. However, many studies of nesting birds last only a few years—and that means they can miss ...
Ecology
Mar 21, 2018
0
4
Researchers have for the first time determined that hybridization between two bird species can give rise to several novel and fully functional hybrid genomic combinations. This could potentially be because hybrid species ...
Plants & Animals
Jan 18, 2018
0
10
A Central Florida bird has begun to plunge so swiftly toward extinction in the wild that biologists are considering the risky option of capturing the last of the species, including fewer than two dozen females.
Ecology
Dec 27, 2017
0
18
A new University of Nebraska-Lincoln study has shown that golden-crowned sparrow chicks can name their tune in just one note – even before knowing the song.
Plants & Animals
Oct 25, 2017
2
7
Despite being well-adapted to urban life, house sparrow numbers are falling. A study in open-access journal Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution finds that compared to sparrows living in the country, urban-dwelling birds show ...
Ecology
Oct 3, 2017
0
72
