Rare bush frog breeds in bamboo, researchers discover

Date:

October 28, 2014

Source:

National University of Singapore

Summary:

Researchers have discovered a new reproductive mode in frogs and toads -- breeding and laying direct developing eggs in live bamboo with narrow openings -- which was observed in the white spotted bush frog (Raorchestes chalazodes). This critically endangered frog is currently only one of two species known to adopt this novel reproductive strategy.

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Livestock beating pandas to the bamboo buffet

Date:

February 27, 2014

Source:

Michigan State University

Summary:

Pandas, it turns out, aren't celebrating the Year of the Horse. Livestock, particularly horses, have been identified as a significant threat to panda survival. The reason: they're beating the pandas to the bamboo buffet. A paper by panda habitat experts explores an oft-hidden yet significant conflict in conservation. “Livestock affect most of the world's biodiversity hotspots,” an author said. “They make up 20 percent of all of the earth's land mammals and therefore monopolize key resources needed to maintain the earth's fragile ecosystems.”

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Out of Africa? New Bamboo Genera, Mountain Gorillas, and the Origins of China's Bamboos

Aug. 23, 2013 — African mountain bamboos are something of a mystery, as nearly all bamboos are found in Asia or South America. Hidden away up mountains in the tropics where they provide food for gorillas, just as China's bamboos provide food for the Giant Panda, there are apparently only 2 species, and they had not been examined in very great detail, except by the gorillas, see image.

It had been thought that they were very closely related to the hundreds of similar bamboos in Asia, but their respective ranges are separated by thousands of miles. As flowering in bamboos is such a rare event, spreading by seed takes a very long time, and the suspicion arose that they might be old enough to represent new genera, and possibly could even be remnants of the earliest temperate bamboos, which spread to Asia on drifting tectonic plates. A new study published in the open access journal PhytoKeys, studies the diversity and evolution of African bamboo.

Having studied bamboos in the Himalayas extensively, and edited the descriptions of all the bamboos of China for the Flora of China Project of Academia Sinica and Missouri Botanical Gardens, Dr Chris Stapleton turned his attention to the bamboos of Africa. He found that the features of the mountain bamboos were significantly different to those of Asia, and together with the large geographic separation, the differences were sufficient for the recognition of 2 new African genera, now namedBergbambos and Oldeania, after their local names in the Afrikaans and Maasai languages. The species are nowBergbambos tessellata and Oldeania alpina.

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Climate Change Threatens Giant Pandas' Bamboo Buffet -- And Survival

ScienceDaily (Nov. 11, 2012) — China's endangered wild pandas may need new dinner reservations -- and quickly -- based on models that indicate climate change may kill off swaths of bamboo that pandas need to survive.

In this week's international journal Nature Climate Change, scientists from Michigan State University and the Chinese Academy of Sciences give forecast how changing climate may affect the most common species of bamboo that carpet the forest floors of prime panda habitat in northwestern China. Even the most optimistic scenarios show that bamboo die-offs would effectively cause prime panda habitat to become inhospitable by the end of the 21st century.

The scientists studied possible scenarios of climate change in the Qinling Mountains in Shaanxi Province. At the northern boundary of China's panda distributional range, the Qinling Mountains are home to around 275 wild pandas, about 17 percent of the remaining wild population. The Qinling pandas vary genetically from other giant pandas, and their geographic isolation makes it particularly valuable for conservation, but vulnerable to climate change.

Continued:  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/11/121111153722.htm