Posts by Rhiannon Meaden

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For strawberry poison dart frogs, nearest is dearest

Rhiannon Meaden on May 20, 2013 at 9:04 am - 0 Comments

Strawberry poison dart frog credit Wikimedia Pstevendactylus

Female strawberry poison dart frogs can be non-choosy when it comes to finding a mate concludes research published in Frontiers in Zoology today. In a population with a strongly biased sex ratio and low trait variance between males, females receive no benefit from expending energy and effort searching out the ‘fittest’ mate. Instead they lose no time in seeking out the male in the closest proximity as a partner.

Ivonne Meuche, from the University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover, and her team continuously observed mating behaviour of 20 female Oophaga pumilio frogs, during the time period between two successive ovipositions. In parallel, they measured surrounding males’ behaviour and spatial distribution in order to establish what was important …

Celebrating Agriculture & Food Security’s first birthday

Rhiannon Meaden on April 23, 2013 at 1:50 pm - 0 Comments

Last Friday marked the first anniversary of the launch of Agriculture & Food Security. To celebrate this important milestone in the journal’s history, an anniversary editorial has been published, describing the achievements of the last year, and reiterating the importance of research on this significant global issue.

Following a highly successful launch event at BioVision Alexandria – of which a highlights video is now available online – Agriculture & Food Security has had a rewarding first year of publishing. Over the last year, a number of highly accessed articles by eminent scientists in the field have been published. Topping this list is Albert Sasson’s review on tackling the food insecurity crisis …

Highlighting need for climate smart agricultural policies

Rhiannon Meaden on April 12, 2013 at 3:53 pm - 0 Comments

Agriculture & Food Security publishes a new thematic series on ‘Climate Smart Agriculture’.

Global warming represents one of the greatest threats to society worldwide. The dual burden of climate change coupled with exponentially increasing populations means that our agricultural systems are under increasing pressure to produce food in unstable environmental conditions. The struggle to reach required productivity means that food security is fast becoming a significant threat to lives worldwide. Furthermore, in recent years it has become clear that not only is agricultural productivity threatened by climate change, current agricultural practices may in fact be accelerating atmospheric changes; agriculture is the leading cause of methane and nitrous oxide emissions, as well as a significant cause of deforestation and …

Investigating the developmental basis of mood and anxiety disorders

Rhiannon Meaden on April 12, 2013 at 1:21 pm - 0 Comments

Several recently published studies have suggested that chronic stress in early life may affect the brain’s reaction to certain stimuli, causing changes in the fear response. These changes have been associated with the development of phobias and anxiety disorders, and therefore it is hoped that by furthering our understanding of this process, clinical treatments may become more efficient and effective. This research is evaluated in a timely and comprehensive review published in Biology of Mood & Anxiety Disorders today.

Callaghan and Richardson address this important phenomenon investigating these effects in rat models and evaluating recent contributions to the literature on this subject. This translational research can be used to further understanding of the development and treatment of these …

Tracking the launch of Animal Biotelemetry

Rhiannon Meaden on April 4, 2013 at 10:20 am - 0 Comments

Animal Biotelemetry, a new open access journal published by BioMed Central has launched today. This new journal aims to support the telemetry community by providing a single home for this research and disseminating findings widely across all users of tagging telemetric technology.

Through recent advances in technology, there has been an acceleration in the uses of telemetry to address a wide range of conservation concerns; recording locations, as well as physiological and behavioural measurements of tagged animals. Furthermore, these devices can now be used on a variety of taxa, from measuring the movement of tiny insects, to detecting brain patterns in birds, and long range migration tracking of fish and large mammals.

The journal is led by Editor-in-Chief, …

Nature versus nurture – better looking birds have healthier babies

Rhiannon Meaden on March 25, 2013 at 9:39 am - 0 Comments

The colourations and patterns on a female great tit’s (Parus major) plumage indicates the ability to produce healthier offspring, finds an article published today in Frontiers in Zoology. The black stripe across her breast and white patches on her cheeks correlate to a chick’s weight at two weeks and immune strength respectively – though the former seems to signal a genetic benefit and the latter can affect an ‘adopted’ chick’s health, suggesting nurture is involved.

In a cross-fostering experiment, newly hatched broods were removed from their genetic mothers’ nests and swapped with another female’s brood. By taking two mothers with different patterning, and swapping their chicks, researchers from Palacky University in the Czech Republic were able to …

Protecting marine fisheries and ecosystems

Rhiannon Meaden on February 28, 2013 at 9:12 am - 0 Comments

Fish_school image credit: wikimedia, Matthew Hoelscher

Marine ecosystems worldwide are suffering from a loss of biodiversity due to destruction of food chains and habitats. In particular, the effects of commercial fishing on sensitive ecosystems and species has had disastrous effects on marine life in recent years. One way to mitigate for these effects is to create areas which are set aside to protect vulnerable environments and species, or to provide a safe pocket from which fish and larvae can re-seed away from over-exploited seas. These areas are called Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), and play a significant part in global marine conservation strategies, although their effectiveness if often disputed.

MPAs have been shown to be effective in increasing density and biomass of fish, as well as …

Marking 25 years in metazoan phylogeny- happy birthday Darwin

Rhiannon Meaden on February 12, 2013 at 9:38 am - 0 Comments

Twenty-five years ago today, on the 12th February 1988, a landmark article was published in Science describing a phylogenetic tree of the metazoans, derived from molecular data. The article, by Katherine Field and colleagues (widely referred to as ‘Field et al.’), represented the first use of small subunit ribosomal RNA to establish the metazoan phylogeny. To mark the anniversary of its publication, and coincidentally Darwin’s 204th birthday, a new commentary is published today in EvoDevo evaluating the impacts of this article.

In this commentary, Max Telford (UCL) critically assesses the techniques and methods used by Field et al., and reconstitutes their dataset, to establish a metazoan phylogeny roughly in line with that accepted today. Despite …

Publishing names in the digital era

Rhiannon Meaden on February 4, 2013 at 9:12 am - 0 Comments

So that scientific research on animals can be communicated confidently, it is important to ensure that the naming of species is stable and universal. For animal species, the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) acts as an advisory body for the zoological community by ensuring the correct use of animal species names. As such, they are responsible for maintaining the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature- which states requirements for new species names.

In a recent BioMed Central blog post the new amendment to ‘the code’ which now legitimizes online-only publication of new species names, providing the publication is registered with …

Planting trees may alleviate global warming in Europe

Rhiannon Meaden on February 1, 2013 at 10:58 am - 0 Comments

As a result of human industrial activities, atmospheric carbon is increasing. This increase has significantly contributed to the climate change that we are experiencing in the world today, and the increasingly worrying predicted changes in climate in the near future. Much scientific research and effort is therefore currently being put into mitigating for these changes in order to ensure environmental stability.

Deforestation has widely been discussed as a major contributor to increasing atmospheric CO2 and subsequently climate change. Most of this discussion revolves around the ability of forests to act as a ‘carbon sink’- storing carbon as vegetative biomass and preventing it from entering the atmosphere. However, the capability of forests to affect their environment is …