New research finds fresh evidence that urbanization in the United States threatens the populations of some species of migratory birds. But the six-year study also refutes one of the most widely accepted explanations of why urban areas are so hostile to some kinds of birds. Most ecologists have assumed that common nest predators in urban areas - such as house cats and raccoons - were destroying eggs or killing young birds in greater numbers than in rural areas, said Amanda Rodewald, co-author of the study and associate professor of wildlife ecology at Ohio State University's School of Environment and Natural Resources........

A team of researchers, led by Stony Brook University paleontologist David Krause, has discovered the remains in Madagascar of what may be the largest frog ever to exist. The 16-inch, 10-pound ancient frog, scientifically named Beelzebufo, or devil frog, links a group of frogs that lived 65 to 70 million years ago with frogs living today in South America........

Like bank accounts, the nutrient cycles that influence the natural world are regulated by inputs and outputs. If a routine withdrawal is overlooked, balance sheets become inaccurate. Over time, overlooked deductions can undermine our ability to understand and manage ecological systems. Recent research by the Universite de Montreal (Canada) and the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies (Millbrook, New York) has revealed an important, but seldom accounted for, withdrawal in the global nitrogen cycle: commercial fisheries. Results, published as the cover story in the recent issue of Nature Geoscience, highlight the role that fisheries play in removing nitrogen from coastal oceans........

Sky and snowpack are two kinds of white, and the pale skin of arboreal fungi makes a third. Within a year or two after death, a log or snag has already become an extension of the ground in one respect: it is shot through with networks of fungal hyphae, the mycelium. This is not a root structure - remember that fungi are more closely related to animals than to plants. Rather, it is like a skilled miner who has adapted to the job so well that he has become almost indistinguishable from the .........

Inspired by the photographs of baobab a few weeks ago, Nikolaus von Behr sent along these photographs of the “Brazilian baobab”, or barriguda, from the country''s dry interior forests (map). Thank you, .........

The work, reported in an advance, online issue of the journal Nature on December 6, 2007, furthers the broad and important goal of elucidating how the neurological system can detect and respond to specific cues in of a sea of potential triggers. These results are a really exciting starting place for us to understand how pheromones and the brain can shape behavior, says team leader Lisa Stowers of the Scripps Research Department of Cell Biology........

Flying fish were the inspiration for an unmanned seaplane with a 7-foot wingspan developed at the University of Michigan. The autonomous craft is thought to bethe first seaplane that can initiate and perform its own takeoffs and landings on water. Funded by the Department of Defense's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), it is designed to advance the agency's "persistent ocean surveillance" program........

Global agriculture, already predicted to be stressed by climate change in coming decades, could go into steep, unanticipated declines in some regions due to complications that researchers have so far inadequately considered, say three new scientific reports. The authors say that progressive changes predicted to stem from 1- to 5-degree C temperature rises in coming decades fail to account for seasonal extremes of heat, drought or rain, multiplier effects of spreading diseases or weeds, and other ecological upsets. All are believed more likely in the future. Coauthored by leading scientists from Europe, North America and Australia, they appear in this weeks issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)........

Some sort of mushroom, I think. We saw this baseball-sized fungus growing on the ridgetop at Fallen Timbers on our last visit. It bloomed from the recent rains, I suppose. On first glancing at it, I really thought it was a baseball that had found its way to the middle of the forest .........

Researchers have shown that birds with higher stress levels adopt bolder behaviour than their normally more relaxed peers in stressful situations. A University of Exeter research team studied zebra finches, which had been selectively bred to produce three distinct types laid-back, normal and stressed based on their levels of stress hormone. The group was surprised to find that the stressed birds were bolder and took more risks in a new environment than the group that was commonly more laid-back. Their findings are published recently (26 October) in the journal Hormones and Behaviour........

Along Upper Asian Way in UBC Botanical Garden is one spot that is a favourite of mine in October. Here, two poorly-known cultivars of downy Japanese maple face each other on opposite sides of the path: Acer japonicum 'O-taki' and Acer japonicum 'O-isami'. Both colour in rich shades of gold and red, and, to my memory, reliably so in Vancouver's .........

Laboratory animals are the source of major discoveries and breakthroughs in biology, not just in tackling disease but also unravelling fundamental molecular processes. Delegates at a recent research conference organised by the European Science Foundation (ESF) and Wellcome Trust heard how technology capable of analysing animal genes across the whole genome is yielding a number of benefits for agriculture and human society........

Researchers studying biological systems at the molecular level now have a new hybrid technique to probe the dynamics of the Holliday junction. The Holliday junction is a four-stranded DNA structure that forms during a process known as homologous recombination, which occurs when damaged DNA is repaired. Understanding how DNA repairs itself is an essential step in ultimately developing therapies for inherited disorders........

Culminating a three-year research project, 115 researchers from around the world report in the Oct. 12 issue of the journal Science a "gold mine" of data on a tiny green alga called Chlamydomonas, with implications for human diseases. The single-celled Chlamydomonas, a slimy organism that grows in soil and ponds, has approximately 15,000 genes, and researchers now know 95 percent of the sequence of its genome. Several years ago, they knew less than 2 percent........

If projected increases in the use of corn for ethanol production occur, the harm to water quality could be considerable, and water supply problems at the regional and local levels could also arise, says a new report from the National Research Council. The committee that wrote the report examined policy options and identified opportunities for new agricultural techniques and technologies to help minimize effects of biofuel production on water resources........

Botany Photo of the Day will have brief written entries on weekends, holidays and my vacations from April through September. – .........

Dragonflies adjust their wing motion while hovering to conserve energy, as per a Cornell University study of the insect's flight mechanics. The revelation contradicts prior speculation that the change in wing motion served to enhance vertical lift. The Cornell physicists came to their conclusions after analyzing high speed images of dragonflies in action. The insects have two pairs of wings, which sometimes move up and down in harmony. At other times the front set of wings flap out of sync with the back set........

A fossilized whale skeleton excavated 20 years ago amid the stench and noise of a seabird and elephant seal rookery on California's Año Nuevo Island turns out to be the youngest example on the Pacific coast of a fossil whale fall and the first in California, as per University of California, Berkeley, paleontologists........

The discovery of the first anatomically modern ear in a group of 260 million-year-old fossil reptiles significantly pushes back the date of the origin of an advanced sense of hearing, and suggests the first known adaptations to living in the dark. In a new study published in PLoS One, Johannes Müller and Linda Tsuji, paleobiologists at the Natural History Museum of the Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany report that these fossil animals, found in deposits of Permian age near the Mezen River in central Russia, possessed all the anatomical features typical of a vertebrate with a surprisingly modern ear........

The forests around Roundrock are full of this stuff right now. Last year (or perhaps the year before) I made the mistake of calling this the work of tent caterpillars, and I was gently corrected by one of my gracious .........