Pollination

This post contributed by Terence Houston, ESA Science Policy Analyst This week, the Ecological Society of America is holding its 96th Annual Meeting in Austin, Texas.  As over 3,000 ecologists participate in the meeting’s numerous scientific sessions, a highlight in Austin that most meeting attendees will make every effort to see are the city’s famous bats. As seen in the…

Termites and biofuel: Mike Scharf from Purdue University and colleagues explored how enzymes found in the guts of termites could be useful in breaking down biomass—that is, branches, leaves and other woody debris—to hasten the production of biofuels. As he said in a recent press release, “For the most part, people have overlooked the host termite as a source of…

If plants had a perspective, they would probably think of pollinators as more than just extra-friendly house guests. That is, plants would be more likely to view pollinators as the mutual friend who likes to set up blind dates. Bees might limit pollen to its use as a protein source for the hive, and birds might devour the flesh of…

Inside the rounded fruit of a fig tree is a maze of flowers. That is, a fig is not actually a fruit; it is an inflorescence—a cluster of many flowers and seeds contained inside a bulbous stem. Because of this unusual arrangement, the seeds—technically the ovaries of the fig—require a specialized pollinator that is adapted to navigate within these confined…

Beer yeasts: Researchers at Lund University in Sweden tracked the history of two yeasts—Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Dekkera bruxellensis—used in alcohol fermentation to pinpoint their role in ethanol production. They found that, around 150 million years ago, competition with other microbes, and the overall increase in sugar-rich fruits, encouraged the yeasts to withstand high ethanol concentrations—an adaptation that would allow them…

A process of producing biofuels that yields brewer’s yeast, researchers’ evidence that human neurodegenerative disorders in Guam in the 1960s were linked to cyanobacteria, President Obama shows support for synthetic biology research and scientists track migratory birds at their farthest recorded distance. Here are highlights in ecology for the last week in May.

Picture this: a luscious green mountain range littered off and on with flowers of every type. Lower in the mountains is green vegetation, higher up are grasslands. Eucomis, or pineapple lilies, have a striking, colorful appearance and grow at varying altitudes along the mountainside. But there tends to be one surpising difference: Two species of the higher altitude pineapple lilies have, not the delicate scent of coconut as do some of the other species, but the much more alarming scent of carrion.

Millions of microbes found buried under the seafloor, fossils reveal the life of giant cockroaches and marine invertebrate struggles, a rare bird haven is explored in Colombia and urban ecologists address pollination in Harlem. Here’s the latest ecological news for the second week in April.

Aquanaut describes plans to colonize the sea for education and conservation, a pitcher plant previously thought to be carnivorous has been wildly reclassified and the first condor egg in 100 years discovered in California. Here are news stories and studies on ecological science from the second week in March.