News by Subject Biology

A study conducted by a UPV/EHU-University of the Basque Country research group within the framework of the European Globaqua project proposes going beyond the study of river ecosystems and incorporating into the studies routinely carried out a set of processes that regulate not only the fluxes of matter but also the fluxes of energy within an ecosystem. In a recently published paper, the group is proposing a new working framework to study the status of rivers.

The world's most extensive study of a major stormfront striking the coast has revealed a previously unrecognised danger from climate change: as storm patterns fluctuate, waterfront areas once thought safe are likely to be hammered and damaged as never before.

Every day, humans pick up on idiosyncrasies such as slow drawls, high-pitched squeaks, or hints of accents to put names to voices from afar. This ability may not be as unique as once thought, researchers report on July 20 in Current Biology. They find that unlike all other non-human mammals, northern elephant seal males consider the spacing and timing of vocal pulses in addition to vocal tones when identifying the calls of their rivals.

Shark feeding habits are helping scientists identify marks on human bones found in the ocean. By analyzing shark scavenging behavior, the University of Florida's C.A. Pound Human Identification Laboratory identified which marks were left behind by sharks, what species of sharks made the marks and where the feedings might have occurred.

In the intertidal zone, one of the most physically stressful habitats on Earth, Porphyra umbilicalis -- laver or Atlantic nori -- and its ancestors have survived and thrived. Now the sequencing of the P. umbilicalis genome has revealed the unexpected reasons for its ability to successfully compete.