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BioScience Magazine
BioScience Press Releases
Press releases about articles published in BioScience, including links to read the article free online.
(Also posted on Eurekalert)
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Research articles published in the July/August 2008 issue of BioScience are as follows: High-Speed Developments in Avian GenomicsCamille Bonneaud, Joan Burnside, and Scott V. Edwards An increasingly broad range of genomics techniques is being applied to birds, thus expanding what...
The ecology of penguins makes these iconic swimming and diving seabirds of the Southern Hemisphere unusually susceptible to environmental changes. Pronounced warming in the Antarctic, as well as commercial fishing, mining, and oil and gas development at lower latitudes, has...
Climate change and forest management that favors single tree species are just two of the critical factors making forests throughout western North America more susceptible to infestation by bark beetles, according to an article published in the June 2008 issue...
Although China currently has fewer invasive woody plants than the United States, China’s potential for invasion by nonnative trees and shrubs is high, according to an article in the May 2008 issue of BioScience. Authors Ewald Weber, of the University...
The rapid growth of China’s industrial and transportation infrastructure is helping to establish nonnative species throughout that country and “setting the stage for potentially rampant environmental damage,” according to an article in the April 2008 issue of BioScience. The article,...
Widespread damage to plants from a sudden freeze that occurred across the Eastern United States from 5 April to 9 April 2007 was made worse because it had been preceded by two weeks of unusual warmth, according to an analysis...
Novel molecular techniques have been responsible for major strides in microbial ecology and are addressing broadly important scientific questions about the variety and distribution of microbial life, according to an article in the February 2008 issue of BioScience. The article,...
The January 2008 issue of BioScience includes a special section titled “Managing for Resilience in Coastal Marine Ecosystems.” The four articles in the section highlight different aspects of attempts to incorporate modern concepts from mathematical ecology into ecosystem-based management of...
In an article in the January 2008 issue of BioScience, Edward O. Wilson argues for a new perspective on the evolution of advanced social organization in some ants, bees, and wasps. Wilson’s article surveys recent evidence that the high level...
The most extensive and detailed study to date of North American tree species concludes that expected climate change this century could shift the trees’ climatic ranges northward by hundreds of kilometers and shrink the ranges by more than half. The...
An article in the November 2007 issue of BioScience describes the history of green roofs and summarizes their benefits and challenges. A green roof—a roof with a vegetated surface and substrate—is more expensive to construct than a typical roof, but...
A survey of long-term trends in population, farm income, and crop production in the agricultural Great Plains concludes that threats to society and the environment are counterbalanced by "surprising stability" and the potential for short- and medium-term sustainability. The survey,...
A study in the September issue of BioScience presents novel findings on how globalization, land policy changes, and monies sent to family members by emigrants have transformed agriculture and stimulated woodland resurgence in El Salvador. The study, by Susanna B....
In the July/August 2007 issue of BioScience, Mark D. Spalding and colleagues describe a new biogeographic classification of the world’s marine coastal and shelf areas: Marine Ecoregions of the World, or MEOW, is expected to be a valuable tool for...
The wild tiger now occupies a mere 7 percent of its historic range, and areas known to be inhabited by tigers have declined by 41 percent over the past decade, according to an article published in the June 2007 issue...
Growing environmental problems resulting from farming argue for a shift toward practices that use lower inputs of pesticides and energy and promote more recycling of energy and materials, according to an article published in the May 2007 issue of BioScience....
Data gathered over decades by the thousands of volunteers who participate in the North American Breeding Bird Survey have yielded a vivid portrait of trends in the abundance of birds in eastern North America. In an article in the April...
In the March 2007 issue of BioScience, an international team of 19 researchers calls for better forecasting of the effects of global warming on extinction rates. The researchers, led by Daniel B. Botkin, note that although current mathematical models indicate...
An understanding of how animals prepare for migration and then regulate the complex shifts of physiology and behavior that occur during the migration may be aided by considering the life history stages and substages within which they occur, according to...
A US and Canadian research team surveying mercury contamination in fish and birds in the northeastern United States and southeastern Canada has identified five “hotspots” where concentrations of the element exceed those established for human or wildlife health. The team...
New mathematical studies of the interactions between oscillating biological populations may shed light on some of the toughest questions in ecology, including the number and types of species in an ecosystem, according to an article in the December 2006 issue...
The highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza has been detected in at least 55 countries in Asia, Europe, and Africa. This often fatal disease is of pressing concern because it can be transmitted from birds to humans, although such transmissions have...
An article in the October 2006 issue of BioScience, the monthly journal of the American Institute of Biological Sciences, describes evidence that conflict between male and female shorebirds over which member of a breeding pair will raise their young has...
An article in the September 2006 issue of BioScience, the monthly journal of the American Institute of Biological Sciences, provides some rare good news for conservation biologists. Authors L. J. Gorenflo and Katrina Brandon used GIS (geographic information system) technology...
Tidal marshes cover only about 45,000 square kilometers worldwide—about the area of Denmark. In comparison with other habitats, tidal marshes support few nonaquatic vertebrate species, but their unique characteristics have led to the evolution of species and subspecies that...
Multispecies habitat conservation plans that permit the incidental "take" of threatened or endangered species often include species whose presence in the planning area has not been confirmed, according to a Forum article in the July 2006 issue of BioScience....
Reflooding of Iraq's destroyed Mesopotamian marshes since 2003 has resulted in a "remarkable rate of reestablishment" of native invertebrates, plants, fish, and birds, according to an article in the June issue of BioScience. Curtis J. Richardson of Duke University and...
Biologists have long argued about how birds evolved the ability to fly, because it is not immediately evident what improvement in fitness would result from ancestral, partly evolved wings. Two theories have recently dominated the debate: one postulates that flight...
Elementary schoolchildren learn that bees make honey and worms make silk, but insects provide many other valuable services that generally are overlooked by nearly everyone. In the April 2006 issue of BioScience, the monthly journal of the American Institute of...
Effective management of predation on livestock is essential to the conservation of large carnivores, because conflicts with human interests can be fatal to individual predators and may lead to the decline of populations of wolves, lions, leopards, cheetahs, coyotes, and...
Although Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba) are one of the best-studied organisms of the open sea, key aspects of their life cycle have remained murky. Understanding krill is important because they are vital prey for fish, birds, and marine mammals, yet...
Why whales emit their characteristic calls remains largely a biological mystery, but listening for the distinctive underwater sounds provides a valuable way to track the movements of endangered large whales. Autonomous data-recording devices equipped with hydrophones (underwater microphones), deployed in...
Systematic overfishing of fresh waters occurs worldwide, but is largely unrecognized because of weak reporting and because other pressures can obscure fishery declines, according to an article in the December 2005 issue of BioScience.
An educational intervention that included reading books sympathetic to and opposed to "intelligent design" (ID) prompted students in a college introductory biology course to report that they had become more accepting of evolution as an explanation for life, according to a study in the November 2005 issue of BioScience.
Massive dredge-and-fill projects have become a common method of combating shoreline erosion as sea level rises and major storms become more common. Such "beach nourishment" projects deposit millions of cubic meters of fill in beach systems. This can bury shallow reefs and degrade other beach habitats, depressing nesting in sea turtles and reducing the densities of prey for shorebirds, fishes, and crabs.
Biologists studying a lethal blight of lodgepole pines in northwestern British Columbia present strong evidence in the September issue of BioScience that climate change is to blame for the outbreak.
Researchers have discovered amphibian species at an accelerating rate in recent decades, with over 1,000 new ones recognized between 1992 and 2003. At the same time, amphibians are, for reasons not entirely clear, declining more rapidly than either mammals or birds, underscoring the importance of an accurate evaluation.
A new study of the carbon dioxide emissions, cropland area requirements, and other environmental consequences of growing corn and sugarcane to produce fuel ethanol indicates that the "direct and indirect environmental impacts of growing, harvesting, and converting biomass to ethanol far exceed any value in developing this energy resource on a large scale."
Just as disturbance makes a landscape susceptible to invasion by alien plant species, the construction of reservoirs around the globe could be contributing to the accelerating spread of exotic aquatic species, according to a Forum article in the June 2005 issue of BioScience.
The substantial risk to salmon stocks posed by salmon that escape from net-pen farms argues for risk assessments of all types of marine fish farming, according to an article published in BioScience.
An analysis of the conservation status of 1095 species that have been protected under the US Endangered Species Act (ESA) indicates that those that have been given more protection under the act are more likely to be improving in status and less likely to be declining than species given less protection.
Proteas — plants with large, colorful flowers that are important in the floral trade — are under threat from land-use change and climate change.
The February 2005 issue of BioScience, the monthly journal of the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS), includes a new assessment of rapid land-cover change around the world over the period from 1981 to 2000. Changes in the use to which land is put have important implications for climate change and loss of biodiversity, and affect local populations' access to food and clean drinking water.
Shrubs have become more abundant in the Arctic over the past 30 years as air temperatures have increased, a change that is likely to affect the grazing of caribou and the communities that rely on them for food.
Five articles published in a Special Section in the December 2004 issue of BioScience, the monthly journal of the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS), provide new global assessments of how well protected areas such as parks can safeguard the numerous animal and plant species at risk of becoming extinct.
Efforts to protect coral reefs should be refocused on terminating self-reinforcing processes that accelerate degradation of these biological marvels, according to a Forum article published in the November 2004 issue of BioScience.
A group of researchers led by Wilfred M. Post of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory describes in the October 2004 issue of BioScience an approach to assessing "promising" techniques for mitigating global warming caused by the greenhouse effect.
A meta-analysis published in the September 2004 issue of BioScience concludes that desertification is driven by a limited group of core variables, most prominently climatic factors that lead to reduced rainfall, technological factors, institutional and policy factors, and economic factors.
The 1995 reintroduction of wolves in the northern range of Yellowstone National Park has led to increased growth of willow and cottonwood in the park by causing fear responses in elk and other ungulates, according to William J. Ripple and Robert L. Beschta of Oregon State University in Corvallis
Two articles published in the July 2004 issue of BioScience, the journal of the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS), provide new assessments of US forest fire dangers and propose improved ways to mitigate them.
Six articles published in a Special Section in the June 2004 issue of BioScience, the journal of the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS), assess remote sensing techniques that are now being used — or have potential for use — in ecological studies of landscapes, regions, and the entire globe.
In the April, 2004, issue of BioScience, a team of 16 experts from around the world report on the diversity and plight of what may be the world's most endangered group of animals -- nonmarine mollusks (that is, terrestrial and freshwater mollusks).
Seven articles published in a special section in the November 2003 issue of BioScience, the monthly journal of the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS), provide new insights into the functioning and structure of tropical island stream ecosystems and identify emerging themes in research.
Threats to protected areas and systems to assess the management of such areas are analyzed in a Special Section published in the September 2003 issue of BioScience, the monthly journal of the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS).
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