Prothonotary warbler nest boxes in the USA

This video from the USA is called Prothonotary Warbler singing in a tree.

From the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in the USA:

Ohio Young Birders Club and the Prothonotary Warbler Nest Box Service Project

By Kimberly Kaufman and Darlene Sillick

Under the guidance of one of Ohio’s leading bird conservationists, Darlene Sillick, student members of the Ohio Young Birders Club (OYBC) conducted a service project to install Prothonotary Warbler nest boxes at the Hoover Nature Preserve (HNP) near Columbus, Ohio. The Prothonotary Warbler Nest Box Project was the result of the commitment of the OYBC’s Central Ohio Chapter to doing more service projects. They learned that a severe wind storm in late June caused significant wind damage to the trees supporting up to 50 Prothonotary Warbler nest boxes at Hoover Nature Preserve. They discussed what they could do to help and decided to get involved by raising funds to buy wood and supplies to build boxes, and then installing the boxes. In early October, the OYBC Central Ohio Chapter built 40 boxes. They suggested that participants at the annual Ohio Young Birders Conference could complete the remaining boxes. They also felt participating in this project would help educate people about the plight of this lovely warbler. The students wanted to make sure these beautiful birds find a place to call home when they return in April 2013.

On Saturday, November, 3, 2012, Aullwood Audubon Center and Farm in Dayton, Ohio, hosted the Sixth Annual Ohio Young Birders Conference. A crowd of nearly 140 people were treated to 11 outstanding student presentations. Topics included camps and career opportunities for young birders, the value of citizen science, and why bird conservation matters. The keynote speaker was Benjamin Van Doren, a freshman at Cornell University. In addition to the presentations, conference attendees also built the remaining 40 Prothonotary Warbler nest boxes for the project. On November 11, OYBC student members and adult volunteers installed dozens of the new boxes at Hoover Nature Preserve. Dedicated volunteer Charlie Bombaci, whose many years of service have made Hoover Nature Preserve a model of success for the Prothonotary Warblers, reports being thrilled that the young birders have decided to take on this project and “pay it forward” for the good of the species.

The Ohio Young Birders Club was founded in 2006 by Black Swamp Bird Observatory. For more information, visit the OYBC website at www.ohioyoungbirders.org. For more information about the Central Ohio Chapter, visit Columbus Audubon Society at www.columbusaudubon.org.

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Ant slave ‘rebellions’

This video from the USA says about itself:

Acorn ant (Temnothorax longispinosus) larva close-up and a worker feeding a larva.

Courtesy of Jo­han­nes Gu­ten­berg Uni­vers­ity Mainz in Germany and World Science staff:

Slave ant “rebellions” found to be common

Sept. 27, 2012

Ants held as slaves in nests of oth­er ant spe­cies of­ten dam­age their op­pres­sors through acts of sab­o­tage, ac­cord­ing to new re­search.

Ant re­searcher Su­sanne Foit­zik of Jo­han­nes Gu­ten­berg Uni­vers­ity Mainz in Ger­ma­ny said she in­i­tially not­ed the “re­bel­lion” be­hav­ior three years ago, in find­ings re­ported in the April 2009 is­sue of the jour­nal Ev­o­lu­tion. More re­cent re­search, she said, has re­vealed that the phe­nomenon—seen among ants that are en­slaved in or­der to raise their mas­ters’ off­spring—is wide­spread.

In three ant popula­t­ions in West Vir­gin­ia, New York, and Ohio, Foit­zik ex­plained, en­slaved work­ers of the ant spe­cies Tem­notho­rax long­i­spin­os­us have been ob­served ne­glect­ing and kill­ing the off­spring of their slave­mak­ers rath­er than car­ing for them. As a re­sult, only 45 per­cent of the slave­mak­ers’ off­spring sur­vived on av­er­age—lit­tle over half the sur­viv­al rate of the slave spe­cies’ brood in its own free-liv­ing nests.

The Amer­i­can slave-making ant Pro­to­mog­nathus amer­i­canus is a “so­cial par­a­site” of an an­cient line­age that de­pends en­tirely on oth­er ant spe­cies, called the host spe­cies, to sur­vive. Slave work­ers care for the brood in par­a­site nests, br­ing food to their mas­ters and feed them, and even de­fend the nest.

The ants be­come slaves when work­ers from the slave-making ant col­o­ny at­tack the nests of the spe­cies T. long­i­spin­os­us, kill the adults, and steal the brood. Back in the mas­ters’ nest, which can be in hol­low acorns, nut­shells, or twigs, the slave­mak­ers ex­ploit the nat­u­ral brood care be­hav­ior of the emerg­ing slave work­ers. The slaves feed and clean the lar­vae, the maggot-like off­spring of their mas­ters.

“Probably at first the slaves can­not tell that the lar­vae be­long to anoth­er spe­cies,” said Foit­zik. As a re­sult, 95 per­cent of the brood sur­vives the lar­val stage. But the situa­t­ion changes when the lar­vae be­come pu­pae, or un­dergo their met­amor­phosis in­to the adult stage. “The pu­pae, which al­ready look like ants, bear chem­i­cal cues on their cu­ti­cles [shell-like skele­tons] that can ap­par­ently be de­tected. We have been able to show that a high frac­tion of the slave­maker pu­pae are killed by slave work­ers.”

The pu­pae are ei­ther ne­glected or ac­tively killed by be­ing at­tacked and torn apart, the re­search­ers found. Sev­er­al slaves at once may as­sault a pu­pa, which can­not move or de­fend it­self dur­ing the pu­pal stage and is al­so un­pro­tected by a cocoon—P. amer­i­can­us be­ing one of a num­ber of ant spe­cies which, for un­clear rea­sons, don’t make co­coons.

In par­a­site nests in West Vir­gin­ia, only 27 per­cent of the pu­pae sur­vived, and in the New York col­o­nies, only 49 per­cent, Foit­zik said. In Ohio, the sur­viv­al chances of the Amer­i­can slave-making ant was a bit high­er at 58 per­cent—but this was still well be­low the sur­viv­al rate of 85 per­cent for pu­pae of the “slave” spe­cies when in their own free-liv­ing nests.

A ques­tion is pre­cisely what mem­bers of the “slave” or host spe­cies achieve by re­belling.

“The en­slaved work­ers do not di­rectly ben­e­fit from the kill­ings be­cause they do not re­pro­duce,” said Foitzik. But their free rel­a­tives in the sur­round­ing area—which might very well be their sisters—indi­rectly ben­e­fit, she not­ed, as slave­maker col­o­nies weak­ened by re­bel­lions are less capa­ble of suc­cess­fully launch­ing new raids.

In­ter­est­ingly, Foit­zik added, ge­o­graph­ic dif­fer­ences in the slave spe­cies’ re­sponses fit pre­dic­tions of ev­o­lu­tion­ary the­o­ry that popula­t­ions will evolve dif­fer­ent traits in re­sponse to dif­fer­ent pres­sures from their lo­cal en­vi­ron­ment. An ex­am­ple: while host ants in New York are very ag­gres­sive and of­ten suc­cess­fully thwart slave raids, West Vir­gin­ian hosts prof­it more from the slave re­bel­lion be­cause, as ge­net­ic anal­y­ses in­di­cate, the neigh­bor­ing col­o­nies are more of­ten close rel­a­tives to the “re­bels.”

Prehistoric mollusk re-created by computer technology

From National Geographic:

Prehistoric “Movie Monster” Mollusk Re-created With 3-D Printer

Creature lived about 390 million years ago.

Ker Than

for National Geographic News

Published September 18, 2012

A spiky, well-armored mollusk that lived in the ocean 390 million years ago has been brought back to life with the help of 3-D printers.

Less than an inch long, the oval-shaped creature—a species of so-called multiplacophoran dubbed Protobalanus spinicoronatus—was previously known from only a few rare and incomplete specimens, which made for inaccurate reconstructions.

“The original reconstruction was made where the plates were arranged in a long row, almost like a long worm with 17 plates down its back,” said study co-author Jakob Vinther, a paleontologist at the University of Texas at Austin.

The latest P. spinicoronatus model is based on the most complete known fossil of a multiplacophoran, discovered in 2001 in northern Ohio. Partially covered in rock, the animal’s shell and spikes had become fragmented as it decayed. …

The new model also reveals that P. spinicoronatus was more heavily armored than other mollusks living at the time, and in fact resembled some modern chitons, which live in shallow, exposed environments where there are a lot of predators—as the team believes was the case for the prehistoric mollusk too.

Multiplacophoran’s hunters would likely have included jawed fish and beaked cephalopods similar to squid and octopuses—both of which had recently evolved.

“It was a really exciting time,” Vinther said, “because there was a lot going on.”

The new mollusk model is detailed in the September 18 issue of the journal Paleontology.

See also here.

September 19, Shenzhen, China – An international research team, led by Institute of Oceanology of Chinese Academy of Sciences and BGI, has completed the sequencing, assembly and analysis of Pacific oyster (Crassostrea gigas) genome—the first mollusk genome to be sequenced—that will help to fill a void in our understanding of the species-rich but poorly explored mollusc family. The study, published online today in Nature, reveals the unique adaptations of oysters to highly stressful environment and the complexity mechanism of shell formation: here.

Fracking problems in Ohio, USA

This video from the USA is called GASLAND Trailer 2010.

From Truthout in the USA:

Special Investigation: The Earthquakes and Toxic Waste of Ohio’s Fracking Boom

An oil and gas rush is underway in Ohio, with widespread consequences for the economy and the environment. Truthout has been investigating the impacts the fracking industry is having on the local environment and on the people who live in the area. This is part one of a three-part series.

Read the article here.

Are Fracking Wastewater Wells Poisoning the Ground beneath Our Feet? Leaking injection wells may pose a risk–and the science has not kept pace with the growing glut of wastewater: here.