Monthly Archives: February 2011

Mobilizing citizens

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Galaxy Zoo is a series of citizen scientist astronomy projects that unleashed 375,000 volunteers on a database of galaxy images. The original project sought to categorize the shape of one million galaxies. So far 200 million images have been categorized. The project received a lot of media attention, which helped boost participation.

There were stories in Time Magazine, National Public Radio, Wired Science, The New York Times, and many other outlets.

Last week at the AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science) conference, Galaxy Zoo founder Chris Lintott offered other scientists tips on how to mobilize their own armies of citizen scientists. Some of the advice included: make sure your interface is bulletproof and offer tools for advanced users. More from the presentation is here.

Not included in the AAAS news story: make it easy, make it fun, and return those phone calls and e-mails from the media. But you already knew that.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ESA/Harvard-Smithsonian CfA

Grassland predators

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Photo courtesy US Fish & Wildlife
The population of dickcissels, a grassland bird, is declining nationwide. Habitat fragmentation is thought to be a key factor. Researchers monitored 33 dickcissel nests in a highly fragmented agricultural landscape in Nebraska and Iowa. They found that 20 nests were completely depredated and that three were partially depredated. The nest predators were:
-nine snakes
-six small mammals
-six raccoons
-two brown-headed cowbirds
-one American mink
One nest was abandoned because of ants. Nine of the 33 nests fledged young. The researchers found the number of snake predators notable.
The study appeared in the Wilson Journal of Ornithology.

Nestling diet study woes

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Researchers saw an adult Abert’s towhee throw two nestlings out of its nest after the researchers had collared the nestlings’ throats as a part of a study of the nestlings’ diet. The researchers also observed yellow- chats retrieving food from their nestlings after throat ligatures were applied. The researchers had no problem getting food samples from song sparrow nestlings with throat ligatures.
The researchers suggest that when nestlings are small compared to their parents, the parents are more likely to heave them out of the nest when they detect a foreign object, like a throat ligature, associated with the nestling.
The paper was published in The Wilson Journal of Ornithology.
The full paper is available here.
Photo: I know, I know, not the correct bird species. US Fish and Wildlife Service

“Bad dog!”

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Feral dogs and dogs running loose threaten wildlife by killing them, stressing them, and passing along diseases. You knew that. This paper in the journal BioScience has the data, and some solutions. Mostly it’s a good resource if you need a quick review of the dog issue.

 
The BioScience paper also received coverage in the popular press. Read a sampling here:

Reuters/Mother Nature Network
Yahoo! News
Red Orbit

This article in High Country News from three years ago really brings the issue to life.

Non-native tree kills moose in Alaska

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US Fish & Wildlife Service

Three moose in Anchorage, Alaska are dead after eating buds, branches or berries from European bird cherry trees (Prunus padus). In one case a moose ate branches that had been pruned in the fall and stored under a deck. One of the moose also ate a toxic amount of Japanese yew branches.

European bird cherry, also known as mayday tree, May Day tree, or hagberry, is considered invasive along streams in both Anchorage and Fairbanks, Alaska. The tree is native to northern Europe and closely resembles native chokecherry trees. In the two Alaskan cities, European bird cherry is changing the mix of plant species in riverside ecosystems. Typically, moose do not browse the tree, allowing the non-native tree to dominate the native species that the moose do eat. The tree has also naturalized in Illinois, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Ontario, and New Brunswick

No one is sure why the moose ate the trees now, when they usually don’t, or why the trees proved so toxic, since the level of toxins in the tree can vary. The only unusual event noted was a mid-winter thaw.

For the full story in the Anchorage Daily News, click here.

For a PDF backgrounder on Prunus padus from the National Park Service, including lots of photos of flowers and fruits, click here, and get ready to download the file.

Stopover or staging area?

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A stopover site is any site where one bird or many stops to rest or feed during migration, says a paper in the current issue of the Journal of Avian Biology. The term “staging area” should be reserved for “sites with abundant, predictable food resources where birds prepare for an energetic challenge (usually a long flight over a barrier such as an ocean or a desert)” the author says.

Read more from the paper in the Journal of Avian Biology here.

Make plasticine eggs

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Your plasticine eggs could look like this.

Researchers at the Virginia Museum of Natural History needed a thousand eggs for a study. They decided to make them out of plasticine clay, because the plasticine eggs would show predators’ tooth and claw marks, plus, they wouldn’t rot. It took them 30 hours and they spent $250 on materials.

They published their exact method for making the eggs in The Southwestern Naturalist. You can find an open access version of the paper on this site.

CWD in Maryland

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Chronic wasting disease (CWD) has been reported in Maryland. The Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) reported last week that a white-tailed deer killed by a hunter last November in Green Ridge State Forest has tested positive for CWD. (Google Maps reveals that this state forest is in the Maryland panhandle, that little strip of Maryland between West Virginia and Pennsylvania.)

The Maryland DNR press release includes a link to the state’s 10-page long CWD response plan. (Actually, it’s two clicks away.)

The Baltimore Sun covered the story. Since the news broke, it also reported stories that the state’s deer harvest dropped below 100,000 for the first time in three years. And that a privately-funded research project is exploring the surgical sterilization of suburban deer.

Lack of photo: Sorry, but there are only so many pictures of CWD-stricken deer I can post in a week. This is Maryland’s state flag.

How did the flying squirrel cross the road?

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Photo: NC Wildlife Commission

Endangered Carolina northern flying squirrels can now safely cross the Cherohala Skyway in western North Carolina thanks to telephone-pole-like crossing structures. Before the poles were installed, in 2008, the squirrels did not cross the Skyway because the distance between the trees on either side of the road exceeded their gliding ability. The northern flying squirrel populations on each side of the roadway did not interbreed.

The squirrels’ use of the poles has been documented with video cameras mounted on the pole tops.

The North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission hopes to allow trees to grow closer to the Skyway, which will allow them to eventually remove the poles.

More details, and a video, are available from the Commission’s press release.

How did the flying squirrel cross the road?

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Photo: NC Wildlife Commission

Endangered Carolina northern flying squirrels can now safely cross the Cherohala Skyway in western North Carolina thanks to telephone-pole-like crossing structures. Before the poles were installed, in 2008, the squirrels did not cross the Skyway because the distance between the trees on either side of the road exceeded their gliding ability. The northern flying squirrel populations on each side of the roadway did not interbreed.

The squirrels’ use of the poles has been documented with video cameras mounted on the pole tops.

The North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission hopes to allow trees to grow closer to the Skyway, which will allow them to eventually remove the poles.

More details, and a video, are available from the Commission’s press release.