Sentences with phrase «many ecological roles»

Weeds like Umbelliferae, Leguminosae and Compositae play an especially important ecological role as they provide food and thus improve reproduction of many arthropod species34.

The idea is that the new grizzly bears would fill the same ecological role as their vanished relatives, as omnivores that spread seeds, break up soil and keep prey populations in check.

If they continue to disappear, she said, the remaining mammals would prove poor stand - ins for important ecological roles.

They also call for more research comparing the ecological role of top predators on the edge of their geographic range, especially in human - modified environments.

Lichens play a variety of important ecological roles and are often a dominant biological component in extreme environments.

Although different species came and went, the same ecological roles were filled over the 1.5 million year span of the Dinosaur Park Formation.

Whether the newcomer will fill the dorado's ecological role or prey on different fish and thus skew species assemblages is unclear, says Carlos Cañas, a river ecologist at the Wildlife Conservation Society here, who plans to monitor the migration of large catfish in the watershed.

«Our work suggests that there's an ecological role that wolves play that won't be played by other animals,» he said.

«We need to know what insects eat when doing ecosystem restoration, and we shouldn't assume that species with generalist feeding habits will necessarily fill the same ecological roles as more specialized species.»

«It's easy to sympathize with the prey,» Laidre says, «but at the same time, there's a lot of ecological roles that that sort of action has.»

That's what happened when a much later extinction killed off the dinosaurs and allowed mammals to take over those reptiles» ecological roles.

Like Charles Darwin's famous finches, which evolved a wide range of beak shapes and sizes to exploit the different foods available in the Galápagos Islands, these cichlids represent a textbook example of what biologists term an adaptive radiation — the phenomenon whereby one lineage spawns numerous species that evolve specializations to an array of ecological roles.

Ecosystems are delicately balanced, and losing ecological roles throws a system out of whack: Think of a forest damaged when the deer population explodes because the wolves that prey on them are removed.

The researchers specifically examined the role of grey reef sharks (Carcharhinus amblyrhynchos), a predatory species commonly associated with coral environments but whose wider ecological role has long been debated.

Bay mussels play a key ecological role in the natural world, said Brian Gaylord, a professor of evolution and ecology at the University of California, Davis, Bodega Marine Laboratory.

«It is all about getting a much deeper understanding of sharks» ecological role in the ocean, which is important to the health of the ocean and, by extension, to our own well - being.»

UNSW's Associate Professor Suzanne Hand, who is a specialist in extinct bats and their ecological role in Riversleigh's ancient environments, says the bats could have played a role in the extraordinary preservation of the ostracod sperm cells.

The researchers note, for example, that the modern ocean is full of ecological «ghosts» — species that are now so rare that they no longer fill the ecological roles they did previously, when they were more abundant.

Dense «dog - hair» stands (so - called because of the large number of short trees growing closely together, like the fur of a dog) are not usually valued, but they may play an important ecological role not previously recognized, Turner adds.

That's especially mysterious because Enantiornithines were exceptionally abundant (they apparently outnumbered the ancestors of modern birds before the asteroid struck) and had presumably played the same ecological roles as the ancestors of modern birds, which survived the mass extinctions.

«I was particularly curious of the ecological role of this root adaptation,» explained Frida Piper, a terrestrial ecosystem ecologist at the remote research center Centro de Investigación en Ecosistemas de la Patagonia (CIEP) in Coyhaique, Chile.

Weta, giant flightless grasshoppers native to New Zealand, ingest and disperse seeds --- an ecological role played by small mammals in other parts of the world.

The human relationship with caffeine is relatively recent, however, and thus its impact on our brains is likely a by - product of its true ecological role.

That unique ecological role for the wasps» venom could explain why these animals rely so heavily on a different mechanism for gene evolution than other venomous species.

The commission has also asked a technical committee to devise a strategy to preserve the ecological role of menhaden.

«Since we held species richness constant, we know that each species» ecological roles — the jobs in the food web — are the key factors influencing big - picture stability.

The decision to lower the allowable catch by 37 % is being driven by recent overfishing and recognition of the ecological role of menhaden.

Queen and worker ants develop from the same sets of genes, but perform completely different ecological roles.

The scientists said they are currently working on analyses to model the ecological role that nonhuman primates play in maintaining the diversity of astroviruses, particularly in places where they share the environment with humans and other animals.

Those marine worms play a key ecological role as an important source of food for other animals.

Turtles and tortoises are group of reptiles that can play key ecological roles, serving as both predators and prey, contributing to the cycling of nutrients, and acting as seed dispersers.

The research illustrates the context - dependent ecological role of sheephead in Southern California kelp forests.

For unknown reasons ichthyosaurs and large pliosaurs had died out by 90 million years ago, but it didn't take long for their ecological roles to be refilled.

But flies play important ecological roles, as pollinators for example, points out Chris Nagano, an entomologist with the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

However, in the ice - free greenhouse of the Mesozoic, reptiles cruised the oceans from pole to pole, occupying the ecological roles now largely filled by whales, dolphins, porpoises, seals and even sharks.

«The sheer amount of organic matter that is made available is astonishing,» says deep - sea ecologist Paulo Y. G. Sumida at the University of São Paulo in São Paulo, Brazil, who studies the ecological role of whale carcasses.

The work is the latest volley in a long - running debate about the ecological role of whales and how their return to the oceans may affect global fisheries that face myriad threats.

Now, a first - of - its - kind field study by Elbroch and Davis colleague Heiko Wittmer has shed new light on the puma's ecological role.

Thus, rather than a multiplication of ecological roles, the new results point to external factors, such as increasing environmental heterogeneity, as the main evolutionary force.

Key outstanding questions regarding CRISPR - Cas biology include the ecological roles of microbial adaptive immunity, the high rates of CRISPR - Cas horizontal transfer, and the coevolution of CRISPR - Cas and phage - encoded anti-CRISPR proteins.

«This paper's theme is about management and is essentially encouraging the use of fire at times and places when it can be used to reduce fuels, to thin forests and restore the ecological role of fire and to help reduce the occurrence of very severe fires in forests where those fires were not characteristic in the past,» Fulé said.

Tritylodontids lived in the Jurassic era and proliferated worldwide, but were thought to have died out as herbivorous mammals took over their ecological role in the late Jurassic.

«This raises new questions about how tritylodontids and their mammalian neighbors shared or separated ecological roles,» says Matsuoka.

Hence, street gutters and the microscopic life they host appear to constitute a unique ecosystem with ecological roles still to be discovered.

«Although sharks are charismatic predators that capture the interest of many, we still only have a very basic understanding of their ecological roles in nature,» said Doug Rasher, a senior research scientist at Bigelow Laboratory and lead author of the new paper.

Further studies are needed in order to confirm the true ecological role of this fascinating hermit crab.

Although the study is interesting, says Eric Dinerstein, a biologist with the World Wildlife Fund in Washington, D.C., he argues that information about the ecological roles of subspecies may be an even more important criterion than genetic makeup in designing conservation strategies.

Likewise, many populations are likely to have been already impacted when first assessed, leaving them vulnerable to the «shifting baseline» effect, which prevents robust evaluation of the loss of their ecological role (electronic supplementary material, table S1).

42 Great Basin springsnails: Living in isolated springs of the Great Basin and Mojave deserts, springsnails play important ecological roles cycling nutrients, filtering water and providing food to other animals.

Scrutinizing the biological and ecological roles of small molecules in oral biofilm communities.