Global Plant Inventory Cuts 600,000 Species Records

Image via Wikipedia 20 September 2010 Last updated at 10:07 ET
Author http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11373757

Until now, there has not been a global list of all the plant species known to science

The inventory of plants known to science worldwide has been cut by more than 600,000 species names.

Many plants have been named more than once, so for the past two years, scientists have been developing an accurate record of the world's plants.

The ongoing study involves UK and US researchers, who expect the final number of recorded species appearing on the Plant List to be closer to 400,000.

The list, to help plant conservation, will be published later this year.

"Without accurate names - authoritatively determined - understanding and communication about global plant life would descend into inefficient chaos," said Stephen Hooper, director of the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew - one of the organisations involved in the project.

In partnership with the Missouri Botanical Gardens, Kew Gardens have been working on the project, which aims to provide a working list of all plants species in an effort to support plant conservation around the world.
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It involves taking records from existing plant databases and producing a single, global inventory that removes duplications and errors - something that is not available at the moment.

The latest developments were outlined during the fourth Global Botanic Gardens Congress, which was held in Dublin in June.

The researchers involved in the Plant List are aware that is not without its own problems.

"It's been a rollercoaster of a project, and the results will be far from perfect but it will be the most comprehensive list to date," said Kew's head of science policy and co-ordination, Eimear Nic Lughadha.

"It will include almost all scientific names at species level that have been published for plants."

However, when the list is published, there will be no coverage of ferns, nor algae, which account for about 10,000 and 30,000 species respectively.

It is hoped that the working list will be accessible via the web in the coming months.

Meteor Shower Unleashes Bright Fireball

Image via Wikipedia

Perseid Meteor Shower Unleashes Bright Fireball
Tariq Malik
SPACE.com Managing Editor
SPACE.com tariq Malik
space.com Managing Editor
space.com Mon Aug 9, 11:33 pm ET

The Perseid meteor shower is peaking this week and announced its annual August arrival with a bright fireball over Alabama, NASA officials say.

A small 1-inch (2.5-cm) wide meteor caused the fireball when it met a fiery demise Aug. 3 while streaking through Earth's atmosphere, according to officials at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. The fireball was observed by skywatching cameras operated by the space center.

"It's a very good start to this year's Perseid meteor shower, which will peak on the night of Aug. 12-13 between midnight and dawn," explained NASA spokesperson Janet Anderson in a statement from the space center.

The fireball occurred at about 9:56 p.m. local time and was low in the sky when it entered Earth's atmosphere about 70 miles (112.6 km) above the town of Paint Rock. It appeared about 9.5 degrees above the horizon. For comparison, your fist held at arm's length is equal to roughly 10 degrees of the night sky.

NASA observations found the meteor to be hurtling through the atmosphere at a phenomenal 134,000 mph (215,652 kph).

"At such a tremendous velocity, the meteor cut a path some 65 miles [104.6 km] long, finally burning up 56 miles [90 km] above Macay Lake, just northeast of the town of Warrior," Anderson wrote. "The meteor was about six times brighter than the planet Venus and would be classified as a fireball by meteor scientists."

Because of its relatively low approach in the sky and its long, shallow path, the meteor qualified as a so-called Earth-grazing meteor, NASA officials said. Earth-grazing meteors are space rocks that enter the Earth's atmosphere at a low angle, from the point of view of a given skywatcher, and appear to scoot slowly and dramatically along the horizon.

The Perseid meteor shower is an annual event that occurs in mid-August when Earth passes close to the orbit of the Comet Swift-Tuttle.

Material left behind by the comet rams into the Earth's atmosphere during the pass at about 37 miles per second (60 km/second), creating a regular show of "shooting stars" that has become known as the Perseid meteor shower. Comet Swift-Tuttle was discovered in 1862 and most recently observed in 1992. It takes about 130 years to orbit the sun.

(This SPACE.com Perseid meteor shower viewing guide shows how to observe the event. This sky map shows where to look to see the meteor shower.)

SPACE.com skywatching columnist Joe Rao has said the 2010 Perseid meteor shower promises to be one to remember for skywatchers with clear skies. Under good conditions, skywatchers could see about one meteor per minute depending on observing conditions, he said in a recent column.

"The August Perseids are among the strongest of the readily observed annual meteor showers, and at maximum activity nominally yields 90 to 100 meteors per hour," Rao explained. "Anyone in a city or near bright suburban lights will see far fewer."

* Galleries: Perseids in 2005 and 2006
* Meteor Shower Viewer's Guide
* Top 10 Perseid Facts

* Original Story: Perseid Meteor Shower Unleashes Bright Fireball

SPACE.com offers rich and compelling content about space science, travel and exploration as well as astronomy, technology, business news and more. The site boasts a variety of popular features including our space image of the day and other space pictures,space videos, Top 10s, Trivia, podcasts and Amazing Images submitted by our users. Join our community, sign up for our free newsletters and register for our RSS Feeds today!

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Mammals Breath Causes Aphids to Keel Over

By Jennifer Viegas
As appeared in http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38630807/ns/technology_and_science-science/

A whiff of danger prompts insects to keel over
Response to mammals’ breath helps aphids avoid being eaten

People may feign falling over backwards after smelling bad breath, but new research shows some insects actually do keel over when they detect warm, humid mammal breath.

It turns out the dramatic instinct, which causes insects living on plants to fall to the ground, is a life-saving strategy that often prevents the bugs from being eaten by potent breath-releasing mammals as they feast on the plant.

The study, published in the latest issue of Current Biology, is the first to show that any kind of defensive behavior exists against incidental predation by herbivores.

"Tiny insects like aphids are not helpless when facing large animals that rapidly consume the plants they live on," said lead author Moshe Inbar of the University of Haifa. "They reliably detect the danger and escape on time."

For the first part of the study, Inbar and his team allowed a goat to feed on potted alfalfa plants infested with aphids. The researchers were amazed to see that 65 percent of the aphids dropped to the ground just seconds before they would have been eaten along with the plant.

"As soon as we started to work on this problem, we suspected that the aphids responded to our own breath," said Inbar, who added that he and his colleagues later wore snorkels to prevent their own breath from affecting the experiment results.

The mass dropping of bugs might have been caused by other factors, however, such as shaking of the plant by the goat while it ate or rubbed against the alfalfa, and shadows produced by the goat's presence. So the researchers invented a special leaf-picking device that shook the plant, without, of course, emitting breath. The aphids didn't keel over.

Shadows also had no effect on the aphids' dropping behavior. Even shadows created by ladybugs, an enemy of aphids, didn't inspire that kind of synchronous response.

The scientists next allowed a restrained lamb to approach aphid infested broad bean seedlings. The breath of the lamb did the trick: aphids dropped off the seedlings left and right.

"It was now obvious that herbivore breath is the key player in conveying to the aphids the message of imminent obliteration," according to the researchers.

To further investigate what qualities in mammal breath cause this bug reaction, the team constructed an artificial breath apparatus that they tested out on the aphids. Carbon dioxide and isolated volatile organic compounds in the produced breath led to no bug response.

When the airstream was warm and humid, however, aphid drop off rates shot up to 87 percent, suggesting that the aphid's sensory system on ambient humidity might be key in their breath detection abilities.

"We predict that this sort of escape behavior in response to mammalian breath may be found among other invertebrates that live on plants and face the same threat," the researchers concluded.

Other insects pay attention to our breath too.

Scientists at the University of California at Riverside, for example, recently did extensive work on how mosquitoes use carbon dioxide, emitted in human breath, to find blood meal targets.

Project leader Anandasankar Ray, an assistant professor in the university's Department of Entomology, and his team hope to foil the mosquitoes by developing repellents that he said will "block mosquitoes' ability to detect carbon dioxide in our breath, thereby dramatically reducing mosquito-human contact."

The aphid work may also pave the way for the development of non-toxic insect repellents.

Copyright © 2010 Discovery Communications, LLC. The leading global real world media and entertainment company.

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CRP Offers Pollinator Habitat Incentives

For Immediate Release

August 2, 2010

CONSERVATION RESERVE PROGRAM OFFERS POLLINATOR HABITAT INCENTIVES

New rules passed by the USDA now offer financial incentives for the establishment of pollinator habitat through the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). The limited time program sign-up, which opens today to new enrollment, provides one of the largest pollinator conservation opportunities ever in the United States.

The CRP program, first established in 1985, is the largest private landowner conservation effort in the United States with up to 32 million acres eligible for enrollment through the USDA’s Farm Service Agency. Program participants take highly erodible land out of crop production, and establish permanent vegetation to protect topsoil and provide wildlife cover. Contracts which run 10 to 15 years provide annual rental payments on enrolled land, and cost-share assistance for establishing vegetative cover.

New rules which go into effect today offer priority ranking for land enrollment that include pollinator-friendly wildflowers and shrubs. Under the current CRP enrollment system, landowners who want to participate are ranked against one another to prioritize enrollment that offer the most conservation benefits. To receive a higher score on the pollinator ranking criteria, participating farmers must plant at least 10% of the CRP acres in wildflower parcels (or at least one acre for CRP enrollment less than 10 acres in size).

The addition of a pollinator habitat incentive for CRP has been promoted by numerous wildlife and pollinator conservation groups in recent years, and the new ranking system now offers one of the largest potential habitat creation opportunities of its kind ever for native bees, butterflies, and managed honey bees, all of which have experienced significant decline in recent years due to habitat loss and other factors.

In developing the new CRP technical requirements, the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) worked closely with Dr. Marla Spivak, a leading honey bee researcher based at the University of Minnesota, and the California-based advocacy group, Partners for Sustainable Pollination. Now, as the enrollment period for new CRP contracts begins, the NRCS is working with the non-profit Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation to develop wildflower seeding recommendations for states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, and Oregon. Those recommendations will focus on selecting native wildflower species that are abundant pollen and nectar sources, and that are most likely to thrive in their respective regions.

Rural landowners interested in more information about CRP, including the current sign-up period which ends August 27th, should contact their local Farm Service Agency office. For location information, visit their web site at http://www.fsa.usda.govhttp://www.fsa.usda.gov/> .

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Iowa Insects Mailing List
IOWA-INSECTS@LIST.UIOWA.EDU
http://atmos.cgrer.uiowa.edu/herbarium/MailingList.htm
IOWA-INSECTS@LIST.UIOWA.EDU

The Iowa Insects Mailing List provides a forum for those interested in Iowa’s insects and,
more generally, invertebrates, their identification and ecology. Its purpose is to encourage
novices who are trying to expand their knowledge about the incredible world of insects.
Another objective is to support the Iowa Native Plant Society.

Wildlife Gardening

Taken from http://www.wildflower.org

You can make your garden more attractive to birds, insects and small mammals in a variety of ways. Minor changes such as mowing less frequently can increase the number of non-human visitors to your yard, no matter its size.

A wildlife garden should provide for basic animal needs such as food, shelter and water. Diversity is the key to creating an optimum habitat. A diverse habitat attracts a wider variety of species, offers more choices for forage and shelter and ensures a constant food supply. Ideally, a garden should offer a mixture of meadow, woods and wet areas, but you can create hiding places and feeding areas without drastically changing your yard's character.

FOOD SOURCES
Your yard will attract different types of animals as the seasons change. Migratory species have different foraging needs than residential, non-migratory species. Larval stages of insects (such as caterpillars) often feed on completely different plants, or parts of plants, from what the adults prefer.
Watch birds and butterflies in the wild or on untended land to discover their food preferences. Select plants that maximize flowering and fruiting. Nectar-rich wildflowers are more nutritious for wildlife than showy cultivars, which often are sterile. Color attracts hummingbirds and butterflies. Hummingbirds prefer bright red and orange flowers, while butterflies seem to select yellow, purple, blue, pink, and occasionally red flowers. Members of the composite family, such as goldenrods, sunflowers and thistles are good nectar sources for butterflies, and later form seedheads that attract goldfinches and other songbirds.
Be sure to include trees and shrubs with berries to provide winter forage for birds and small mammals. Vines and grasses provide food and nesting materials. Other provisions you can offer residential or transient wildlife include pollen, fungi and sap from native plants or compost.

SHELTER SOURCES
Try to create a layered effect when planning shelter for wildlife. Wooded areas should include overlapping canopies of trees, shrubs and forbs. The edges of woods are usually rich with wildlife because the cover protects them from predators and the elements.
When designing shelter areas, shrubs may be more important than trees because they grow faster and provide nesting sites for many different species. To provide maximum cover, curb your pruning impulses! Though dense shrubbery, tangled vines and dead-standing trees may contradict your image of an orderly yard, they create ideal nesting and forage sites.
Even in a small yard, a single tree or a few vines can provide shelter for nesting wrens or blackbirds, as well as cover for snails and butterflies. Don't overlook what's underfoot - brush piles, hollow logs, and compost piles offer a host of micro-habitats for many organisms.

WATER SOURCES
A significant portion of wildlife activity centers around water. A water source such as a small pond provides a home for amphibians and aquatic insects, a bathtub for birds and drinking water for all kinds of creatures. Many insects have aquatic larval stages, so they need to be near water. Migrating wildlife need convenient water sources along their seasonal routes. On the smallest scale, even a birdbath is a valuable addition to your garden or yard.

Once you allow wildlife into your garden, you must allow nature a bit of freedom in ruling it. As Chris Baines, an innovative British landscaper, notes, the secret of a successful wildlife garden depends on understanding the way in which your various gardening activities will distort the balance. Try to minimize disturbance. Refrain from using herbicides, pesticides, or fungicides, which adversely affect the delicately balanced interactions between organisms and their environment. Allowing your garden more autonomy will leave you plenty of time to observe, enjoy and learn from your creation.

Dragonflies

Image via Wikipedia

If you're lucky, dragonflies will join the birds and butterflies in your Backyard Wildlife HabitatTM site this summer. You will enjoy their presence -- especially during cookouts and other outdoor activities -- because they eat those pesky mosquitoes and flies. Dragonflies are attracted to water. Therefore, if you have a birdbath, water garden or pond, you may also have dragonflies.

Dragonflies have roamed the earth for over 300 million years. They have inspired both awe and fear in us with their fierce beauty and fascinating lifecycle. Born underwater to emerge from a life in mud and sand, a dragonfly nymph transforms into "a living flash of light," as Lord Tennyson once described them. The 2,500 different species of dragonflies come in many colors -- blue, green, purple and bronze. Their aerial acrobatics are made possible by powerful wings that generate small tornadoes of air that keep the dragonfly moving at speeds of up to 60 miles an hour.

Like many birds and some butterflies, dragonflies migrate. But unlike other migratory creatures, the phenomenon of dragonfly migration is very much shrouded in mystery. It is the combined flight patterns of millions of dragonflies that have become a mystery to modern researchers. You may have seen a group of dragonflies fly by and wondered with curiosity, "Where are they going?" As yet this remains unanswered, as do many questions. It is not even certain why dragonflies migrate. One day these mysteries may be solved. In the meantime, all we can do is watch them in awe, admire their beauty and thank them for being so helpful around the yard!

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Soybean Pollination Experiment

This experiment was carried out to evaluate the effect of the honeybee pollination in the production and quality of soybean seeds (Glycine max L. Merril). Seed production was higher (P=0.0001) in covered areas with honeybee colonies (50.64%) and uncovered areas (57.73%) than in covered areas without honeybee colonies. It could be concluded that honeybees were responsible for 95.5% of the pollination accomplished by insects. The pod number in covered treatment with honeybees was 61.38% higher (P=0.0002) than in the covered treatment without honeybees. The average weight of 100 seeds was larger (P=0.0001) in the area covered without honeybees, and reached 17.8 g. The medium content of crude protein in grains was 36.7% and the average oil content was 20.2%. The germination test did not show differences (P>0.05) among the seeds in different treatments. It was concluded that the honeybee pollination in the soybean increased the seeds production.

Taken from Brazilian Archives of Biology and Technology

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