Dutch Buzz: Bees Get Smaller, Men Taller

by Mindy Weisberger, Senior Writer   |   February 24, 2016 02:32pm ET

A team of scientists took a closer look at declining bee populations in the Netherlands and discovered something unexpected — it wasn't just the bee populations that were shrinking. The bees themselves were getting smaller.

Over nearly a century and a half, big-bodied female bee species in the Netherlands have reduced in size by about 7 percent, according to a new study, the first to investigate variations in Dutch bee size over time. The researchers suggest that reduced habitats and resources could be causing the change, putting evolutionary pressure on the bees to shrink.

Their investigation began several years earlier, with a study analyzing the main drivers of bee decline, which they linked to diminishing numbers in the bees' host plants. They found that if a plant species dwindled, the number of bees that depended on that plant would soon follow suit, and that populations of large-bodied bee species plummeted more rapidly than that of small-bodied bees.

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Poachers and wildlife traffickers to face prison sentences across Europe

New sentencing policy would end legal loopholes that leave wildlife crimes in many central and eastern European countries punishable by non-custodial sentences

Arthur Neslen

Thursday 25 February 2016 16.38 GMTLast modified on Thursday 25 February 201616.40 GMT

Organised wildlife criminals will face prison sentences of at least four years in a crackdown on poachers, smugglers and illegal trophy hunters that the European commission is due to launch on Friday.

An action plan seen by the Guardian would force all EU countries to consider major wildlife trafficking a grave offence under the UN’s convention against transnational organised crime.

The environment commissioner, Karmenu Vella told the Guardian the package was “a bold step forward”.

He said: “It is essential that we work together. All 28 member states must consider wildlife trafficking as a serious crime. The plan will help on coordination with Europol. At a local level, communities must feel economically invested in conservation. Then we can truly tackle the issue.”

The new sentencing policy would end current legal loopholes that leave wildlife crimes in many central and eastern European countries punishable by fines and non-custodial sentences.

Only 11 EU countries imposed prison sentences on wildlife criminals in 2013-14 according to an EU staff working document on wildlife crime, seen by the Guardian.

“Concern has been expressed in a number of reports that the severity of fines and prison sentences imposed in the EU fails to reflect the seriousness of the crimes and the value of the wildlife on the international (black) market, and lack deterrent effect,” the paper says.

Werner Gowitzke, an environmental crime officer for Europol said: “The fact is that different penalties in different member states can create a bias for organised crime groups to base their activities in one country or another.”

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FEBRUARY 23, 2016

Baby gorilla delivered by rare Caesarean section

by Brett Smith

A veterinary surgical team was successfully able to deliver a lowland gorilla by Caesarean section at Bristol Zoo in the United Kingdom after her mother, Kera, showed deadly signs of pre-eclampsia.

According to a press release from Bristol University, the female baby gorilla weighed just 2 pounds, 10 ounces and has yet to be named.

“The birth of any gorilla is a rare and exciting event; but the birth of a baby gorilla by Caesarean section is even more unusual,” said John Partridge, the zoo’s senior curator of animals. “It wasn’t a decision that we took lightly – Kera was becoming quite poorly and we needed to act fast in order to give the best possible treatment to mother and baby, and to avoid the possibility of losing the baby.”

The decision to perform a cesarean section was made after a medical assessment by veterinary medicine experts from the zoo’s in-house vets and experts from nearby Bristol University and St Michael’s Hospital.

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Checking the health of captive rhinos

Date: February 24, 2016

Source: University of Veterinary Medicine -- Vienna

White rhinoceroses are among the largest rhinoceroses in the world. Their natural habitat is southern Africa. Due to the great demand for their horn, the animals are poached intensely and threatened with extinction. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) therefore placed the southern white rhinoceros (Ceratotherium s. simum) on the red list of endangered animals. In zoos, southern white rhinoceroses are considered easy to keep. The reproductive success of captive animals has not been so good, however.

The wild animal experts Annika Posautz, Felix Knauer and Chris Walzer from the Research Institute of Wildlife Ecology at Vetmeduni Vienna investigated, among other things, how the housing conditions of southern white rhinoceroses differed in zoos across Europe and which health problems were most common. “We wanted to find out what sorts of problems exist in European zoos and what could be improved. With the exception of the reproductive tract, little is known in the scientific literature about the health of captive rhinos. The animal management also differs from zoo to zoo,” explains Posautz, the study’s first author.

Of 70 zoos contacted, 45 responded to the online survey. One zoo from Israel also took part in the study. The collected data reflect a total of 159 rhinoceroses.

Most common health problems with skin, digestive tract and reproductive organs

The survey showed that dermatological, gastrointestinal and reproductive cases accounted for most of the health problems among the animals. The dermal cases often involved wounds resulting from aggressive interactions with other animals. Colic and enteritis were among the most common gastrointestinal problems reported for white rhinoceroses.

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Ancient chimpanzee ‘Adam’ lived over one million years ago, research reveals

Date: February 25, 2016

Source: University of Leicester

Chimpanzees have an ancient common ancestor -- or genetic 'Adam' -- that lived over one million years ago, according to University of Leicester geneticists.

In a study, which was funded by the Wellcome Trust and published in the journal Genome Research, the research team led by Professor Mark Jobling from the University of Leicester's Department of Genetics determined the DNA sequences of a large part of the Y chromosome, passed exclusively from fathers to sons, in a set of chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and orangutans.

The study also looked at mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), passed from mothers to offspring, in the same set of animals.

This allowed the construction of genealogical trees that could be compared between species and subspecies -- and helped the researchers to discover that the genetic 'Adam' for chimpanzees lived a remarkable one million years ago.

Dr Pille Hallast from the Department of Genetics, lead author on the paper, explained: "The ancestor of a Y-chromosome family tree is sometimes called 'Y-chromosomal Adam'. We can compare the ages of 'Adams' between the species. For humans the age is about 200 thousand years, while for gorillas it's only about 100 thousand years. Thanks to two chimps in our sample, Tommy and Moritz, chimpanzees have an amazingly ancient 'Adam', who lived over 1 million years ago.

"The Y chromosome tree for gorillas is very shallow, which fits with the idea that very few male gorillas (alpha males) father the offspring within groups. By contrast, the trees in chimpanzees and bonobos are very deep, which fits with the idea that males and females mate with each other more indiscriminately."

The project's leader, Professor Mark Jobling from the University of Leicester's Department of Genetics, added: "It's interesting to compare the shapes of the trees between humans and our great-ape relatives. Considering both Y chromosome and mitochondrial DNA trees, humans look much more like gorillas than chimps.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/02/160225085823.htm