Happy Taxonomist Appreciation Day, everyone! In a lovely tradition, the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS) issued the Top 10 Marine Species of 2019 for the ninth time around on time for this special day! In what has also already become a tradition we are particularly proud of, it’s not one, but several species described […]
About 120 clusters of 19th-century orchid bee nests were found during restoration work on the altarpiece of Basilica Cathedral in Casco Viejo (Panamá). Having conducted the first pollen analysis for these extremely secretive insects, the researchers identified the presence of 48 plant species, representing 23 families.
Hunting and bushmeat trade negatively impact wildlife worldwide with serious implications for biodiversity conservation. The current situation in Angola shows a concerning increase in bushmeat trade along main roads. In a recent publication in the open-access journal Nature Conservation, an international group of scientists presented data gathered on a roundtrip around five main Angolan cities. It turned out that the influence of those activities on wildlife population is very unsettling.
The Belgian coastal dunes, a protected habitat of high conservation value, are getting severely impacted by one of its worst enemies amongst invasive species: the Oregon grape. To help mitigate the detrimental effect of this North American shrub invader, Belgian scientists carried out an experiment to assess the effectiveness of different management methods.
A novel approach relying on a short sequence of mitochondrial DNA in conjunction with a lateral image of the holotype specimen was proposed to greatly accelerate species identification and description, especially when it comes to hyperdiverse taxa, such as parasitic wasps.
New open-access book presents a comprehensive report on the remarkable ecosystems of the Koytendag nature reserve Situated in the extreme south-east of Turkmenistan: on the border with Uzbekistan and close to the border with Afghanistan, Koytendag presents one of the most distinct landscapes in Central Asia. Reaching elevations of up to 3,137 m, this is […]
While exploring the way alien species invade cities around the world, South African PhD student Ashlyn L. Padayachee (University of KwaZulu-Natal, UKZN) and her supervisors, Serban Proches (UKZN) and John Wilson (SANBI and Stellenbosch University) remember suddenly being stricken. What they realised was that while cities were gradually starting to prepare for climate change, their responses to […]
Unable to differentiate between a predator and a tourist boat carrying humans curious to view a colony of seals while resting in their natural habitat, pinnipeds are quick to react defensively as soon as they sense what they perceive as a potential life threat. The closer the vessel approaches, the more likely it is for […]
Scientists provide crucial data to prompt further conservation and safety measures at the notorious BR-262 highway Having systematically monitored wild animals killed on the Brazilian federal highway BR-262, which passes through the Pantanal region, a research team from the Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil, published their data concerning birds and reptiles in the […]
Inspired by the negative results in the recently published largest-scale analysis of the relation between population density and positions in geographic ranges and environmental niches, Drs Jorge Soberon and Andrew Townsend Peterson of the University of Kansas, USA, teamed up with Luis Osorio-Olvera, National University of Mexico (UNAM), and identified several issues in the methodology used, able to […]