Conservation status of polar bears (Ursus maritimus) in relation to projected sea-ice declines.

abstract：:Group choruses of marine animals can produce extraordinarily loud sounds that markedly elevate levels of the ambient soundscape. We investigated sound production in the Gulf corvina (Cynoscion othonopterus), a soniferous marine fish with a unique reproductive behaviour threatened by overfishing, to compare with sounds...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Erisman BE,Rowell TJ

更新日期：2017-12-01 00:00:00

abstract：:The study of birds, especially the Galapagos finches, was important to Darwin in the development of the theory of evolution by natural selection. Birds have also been at the centre of a recent reformulation in understanding cerebral evolution and the substrates for higher cognition. While it was once thought that bird...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Reiner A

更新日期：2009-02-23 00:00:00

abstract：:The birth sex ratio of vertebrates with chromosomal sex determination has been shown to respond to environmental variability, such as temperature. However, in humans the few previous studies on environmental temperature and birth sex ratios have produced mixed results. We examined whether reconstructed annual mean tem...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Helle S,Helama S,Jokela J

更新日期：2008-02-23 00:00:00

abstract：:Long-term studies have revealed population declines in fishes, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals. In birds, and particularly amphibians, these declines are a global phenomenon whose causes are often unclear. Among reptiles, snakes are top predators and therefore a decline in their numbers may have serious conseq...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Reading CJ,Luiselli LM,Akani GC,Bonnet X,Amori G,Ballouard JM,Filippi E,Naulleau G,Pearson D,Rugiero L

更新日期：2010-12-23 00:00:00

abstract：:Avian predators learn to avoid defended insects on the basis of their conspicuous warning coloration. In many aposematic species, the level of chemical defence varies, with some individuals being more defended than others. Sequestration and production of defence chemicals is often costly and therefore less defended in...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Skelhorn J,Rowe C

更新日期：2006-09-22 00:00:00

abstract：:Male sand lizards (Lacerta agilis) with a specific restriction fragment length polymorphism fragment in their major histocompatibility complex (MHC) genotype ('O-males') are more resistant to ectoparasites (a tick, Ixodes ricinus) than are males that lack this fragment ('NO-males'). However, emerging evidence suggests...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Olsson M,Wapstra E,Madsen T,Ujvari B,Rugfelt C

更新日期：2005-09-22 00:00:00

abstract：:The lesser kestrel (Falco naumanni) suffered a sharp population decline over much of its European distribution range in the middle of the twentieth century. Still declining in some areas, the species has recently experienced a notable population recovery in certain regions. We examined the genetic diversity variation ...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Ortego J,Aparicio JM,Calabuig G,Cordero PJ

更新日期：2007-10-22 00:00:00

abstract：:Flight feather moult in small passerines is realized in several ways. Some species moult once after breeding or once on their wintering grounds; others even moult twice. The adaptive significance of this diversity is still largely unknown. We compared the resistance to mechanical fatigue of flight feathers from the ch...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Weber TP,Borgudd J,Hedenström A,Persson K,Sandberg G

更新日期：2005-03-22 00:00:00

abstract：:Reciprocity constitutes the prevalent mating mechanism among simultaneous hermaphrodites. Yet, when copulations in the female role confer fitness costs through male manipulation, it becomes advantageous sometimes to mate unilaterally in the male role only. In the sea slug Siphopteron quadrispinosum, acting males stab ...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Anthes N,Michiels NK

更新日期：2007-04-22 00:00:00

abstract：:Information on migration patterns is critical to using no-take migratory corridors and marine reserves to protect the spawning stock of commercially exploited species. Both active and passive acoustic tracking methods quantified movement of commercially and ecologically important blue crabs in the White Oak River estu...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Eggleston DB,Millstein E,Plaia G

更新日期：2015-05-01 00:00:00

abstract：:Boreal forest ecosystems are important drivers of the global carbon (C) cycle by acting as both sinks and sources of atmospheric CO(2). While several factors have been proposed as determining the ability of boreal forest to function as C sinks, little is known about their relative importance. In this study, we applied...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Jonsson M,Wardle DA

更新日期：2010-02-23 00:00:00

abstract：:Animal contests often involve the use of repeated signals, which are assumed to advertise stamina, and hence fighting ability. While an individual may be predicted to give up once it has crossed an energetic threshold, costs inflicted by its opponent may also contribute to the giving-up decision. Therefore, physical s...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Mowles SL,Cotton PA,Briffa M

更新日期：2011-06-23 00:00:00

abstract：:An audience can have a profound effect on the dynamics of communicative interactions. As a result, non-human primates often adjust their social decision-making strategies depending on the audience composition at a given time. Here we sought to test how the unique vocal behaviour of multiple audience members affected d...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Toarmino CR,Wong L,Miller CT

更新日期：2017-01-01 00:00:00

abstract：:The ecological traits and functional capabilities of marine animals have changed significantly since their origin in the late Precambrian. These changes can be analysed quantitatively using multi-dimensional parameter spaces in which the ecological lifestyles of species are represented by particular combinations of pa...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Bush AM,Novack-Gottshall PM

更新日期：2012-02-23 00:00:00

abstract：:One of the contemporary hypotheses concerning the evolution of human altruism is the cooperative breeding hypothesis (CBH) which has recently been tested in non-human primates. Using a similar paradigm, we investigated prosociality in a cooperatively breeding corvid, the azure-winged magpie. We found that the magpies ...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Horn L,Scheer C,Bugnyar T,Massen JJ

更新日期：2016-10-01 00:00:00

abstract：:Telomeres are sensitive to damage induced by oxidative stress, and thus it is expected that dietary antioxidants may support the maintenance of telomere length in animals, particularly those with a fast rate of life (e.g. fast metabolism, activity and growth). We tested experimentally the effect of antioxidant supplem...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Kim SY,Velando A

更新日期：2015-05-01 00:00:00

abstract：:The phenotypic effect of mutations can depend on their genetic background, a phenomenon known as epistasis. Many experimental studies have found that epistasis is pervasive, and some indicate that it may follow a general pattern dependent on the fitness effect of the interacting mutations. These studies have, however,...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Wang Y,Arenas CD,Stoebel DM,Cooper TF

更新日期：2013-02-23 00:00:00

abstract：:For many animals, navigating their environment requires an ability to organize continuous streams of sensory input into discrete 'perceptual objects' that correspond to physical entities in visual and auditory scenes. The human visual and auditory systems follow several Gestalt laws of perceptual organization to bind ...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Gupta S,Bee MA

更新日期：2020-09-01 00:00:00

abstract：:Migratory animals present a unique challenge for predicting population size because they are influenced by events in multiple stages of the annual cycle that are separated by large geographic distances. Here, we develop a model that incorporates non-fatal carry-over effects to predict changes in population size and sh...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Norris DR,Taylor CM

更新日期：2006-03-22 00:00:00

abstract：:Given the high costs of avian obligate brood parasitism, host individuals are selected to reject parasitic eggs they recognize as foreign. We show that rejection may not necessarily follow egg discrimination when selective removal of the parasitic egg is difficult. We studied egg rejection behaviour in a small host of...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Antonov A,Stokke BG,Moksnes A,Røskaft E

更新日期：2009-04-23 00:00:00

abstract：:Nectar concentration is assumed to remain constant during transport by honeybees between flowers and hive. We sampled crop contents of nectar foragers on Aloe greatheadii var. davyana, a major winter bee plant in South Africa. The nectar is dilute (approx. 20% w/w), but the crop contents of bees captured on flowers ar...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Nicolson SW,Human H

更新日期：2008-06-23 00:00:00

abstract：:The response to intradermally injected phytohaemagglutinin (PHA-response) is a commonly used quantification of avian immunocompetence (the ability to resist pathogens). Parasite-mediated sexual selection requires heritable immunocompetence, but evidence for heritability of PHA-response in birds largely stems from full...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Pitala N,Gustafsson L,Sendecka J,Brommer JE

更新日期：2007-08-22 00:00:00

abstract：:The plight of the marine fisheries is attracting increasing attention as unsustainably high exploitation levels, exacerbated by more extreme climatic conditions, are driving stocks to the point of collapse. The North Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua), a species which until recently formed a major component of the demersal f...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Hutchinson WF

更新日期：2008-12-23 00:00:00

abstract：:Studies of animal populations suggest that low genetic heterozygosity is an important risk factor for infection by a diverse range of pathogens, but relatively little research has looked to see whether similar patterns exist in humans. We have used microsatellite genome screen data for tuberculosis (TB), hepatitis and...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Lyons EJ,Frodsham AJ,Zhang L,Hill AV,Amos W

更新日期：2009-08-23 00:00:00

abstract：:The fastest land animals are of intermediate size. Cheetah, antelope, greyhounds and racehorses have been measured running much faster than reported for elephants or elephant shrews. Can this be attributed to scaling of physical demands and explicit physiological constraints to supply? Here, we describe the scaling of...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Usherwood JR,Gladman NW

更新日期：2020-10-01 00:00:00

abstract：:Despite hopes that the processes of molecular evolution would be simple, clock-like and essentially universal, variation in the rate of molecular evolution is manifest at all levels of biological organization. Furthermore, it has become clear that rate variation has a systematic component: rate of molecular evolution ...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Bromham L

更新日期：2009-06-23 00:00:00

abstract：:Human-induced environmental change is occurring at an unprecedented rate and scale. Many freshwater habitats, in particular, have been degraded as a result of increased salinity. Little is known about the effects of anthropogenic salinization on freshwater organisms, especially at sublethal concentrations, where subtl...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Squires ZE,Bailey PC,Reina RD,Wong BB

更新日期：2008-08-23 00:00:00

abstract：:Unrelated same-sex individuals pairing together and cooperating to raise offspring over many years is a rare occurrence in the animal kingdom. Cooperative breeding, in which animals help raise offspring that are not their own, is often attributed to kin selection when individuals are related, or altruism when individu...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Young LC,Zaun BJ,Vanderwerf EA

更新日期：2008-08-23 00:00:00

abstract：:Darwin devoted much of his working life to the study of plant reproductive systems. He recognized that many of the intricacies of floral morphology had been shaped by natural selection in favour of outcrossing, and he clearly established the deleterious effects of self-fertilization on progeny. Although Darwin hypothe...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Pannell JR

更新日期：2009-06-23 00:00:00

abstract：:At the end of May, 17 scientists involved in an EU COST Action on Conservation Physiology of Marine Fishes met in Oristano, Sardinia, to discuss how physiology can be better used in modelling tools to aid in management of marine ecosystems. Current modelling approaches incorporate physiology to different extents, rang...

journal_title：Biology letters

authors： Jørgensen C,Peck MA,Antognarelli F,Azzurro E,Burrows MT,Cheung WW,Cucco A,Holt RE,Huebert KB,Marras S,McKenzie D,Metcalfe J,Perez-Ruzafa A,Sinerchia M,Fleng Steffensen J,Teal LR,Domenici P

更新日期：2012-12-23 00:00:00